Beef Stew

Two of our Hallowe'en pumpkins were stolen! STOLEN! Who steals pumpkins nowadays? It wasn't even the witty pumpkin (mine). We looked everywhere as it was quite windy on Hallowe'en night, so we thought maybe they just blew away. But they were not to be found on our lawn, on our neighbours' lawn, across the road... Not even smashed anywhere. Someone really liked our pumpkins, and decided they wanted to own them for the couple hours left on Hallowe'en. Desperate times call for desperate measures. 

We've had a few dinners out at friends over the past week. We went over to my godmother's on Friday, and then over to the Puddy's on Tuesday. Delicious food, and good times at both. It was also "Bring your grade 9 to work day" this week, so Nick joined us at work. 

We had a fantastic nibbly dinner last night, we got some cold meats, cheeses, sliced an apple, a glass (or two) of riesling, mmmm. It was awesome. And pretty! 

Unfortunately, the champagne part of Champagne Thursday was significantly less successful. 

November 5, 2015

This week we suffered through a bottle with a very pretty label. It was a bottle from Mexico, and I know what you're thinking: Mexico? World renowned bubblies come from Mexico! Well, I'm not sure that is true, but if it is, this was not one of those bubbles. 

Even Tyson was unimpressed...

Sala Vive is a sparkling from Mexico, made by a branch of the Freixenet estate in Spain. I didn't know this until doing a bit of research this morning. We quite like the Freixenet black bottle, so don't think that this is a review of all their wines. Some are quite lovely. To us, however, this was not one of them. 

It is advertised as an extra dry sparkling wine, which totally appealed to us. In the glass it's a beautiful straw colour with lots of bubbles making their way to the surface. We were excited about it. 

This is where it all started to go sideways. Well, "how did it smell?" you ask? It smelled delicious. But not wine delicious... Irish Beef Stew delicious... Pardon me? Yes. A lovely beefy stew. Specifically the gravy from a tin of beef stew. I got an essence of canned peas mixed in, but for Shane it was strictly stew gravy. It brought back childhood memories for him of his dad opening the tin for lunch... 

Now, I didn't want to write that in the book. I made us drink the whole glass, sniffing and swirling and bubbling before admitting defeat, yup, that's it. I can't put anything else in the book, because that's all it was. 

After we got accustomed to the taste and smell, we didn't hate it... I mean, we didn't like it, but we didn't hate it... it was just very very strange. Something just wasn't quite right... Hahaha, yes, of course we finished it. It would have been wasteful to pour it out. It was similar to the green pepper pizza bubbly we had a while back, we finished that one too, and that was a bigger struggle than the beef stew was.  

Verdict: No. Never again. If I want a beef stew, I'll make one, or open a can. Can't do this one again. But beautiful label. 

~S

• Brand: Freixenet de Mexico 
• Type of Grape: Not advertised
• Sweetness: 15g/L
• Price: $18.95 (Looking at the LCBO website, it was released on our wedding day! How lovely!)
• Tasting Notes: A strong essence of Beef Stew, with canned peas on the nose.