The stories behind (some of) the bottles

Generally speaking, I buy wine based on two things: price and label. Sometimes, if a label is really exceptional, I'll disregard the price and splurge. I can justify this because I view the labels as art and use them to decorate my kitchen.

I thought I'd focus on a few bottles that were either especially good or especially memorable. Let's begin with Rowdy Bush and BearBoat, shall we?

Rowdy Bush was delicious and reasonably priced. For my fortieth birthday, I asked my friends to participate in a wine label contest. They could enter as many times as they wanted, but each entry required the donation of one bottle of wine. For each bottle entered in the contest, they received a vote. So... Jody entered, like, four or five bottles, I think; that meant she could vote four or five times. The best part of the contest was this: the birthday girl (me!) got to keep all the bottles!

For that particular birthday, someone entered a bottle of Rowdy Bush. It didn't win the overall wine label contest, but I liked it a lot and ended up liking the wine inside the bottle a lot too! And then I discovered it for cheap at the state store and stocked up!

I recommended it to my friend Wes and he also enjoyed it, so there's another person who recommends it.

As for BearBoat... This bottle of wine was given to me by my brother The Pip for Christmas one year. He also gave me a bottle of Freakshow, which I still have as well, but that's farther down in the lineup and isn't in this picture. Freakshow is really good, though! I just remember liking the BearBoat a little bit better -- and this was surprising to me because I'm not always a huge fan of Pinot Noir. It sometimes tastes a little too watered down, if you know what I mean.

Both Freakshow and BearBoat cost more than I'm usually willing to spend, but the labels and the wine inside the bottles are excellent, so if you stumble upon a sale at some point, I'd say it's worth the splurge.

Next up is Aura. This was a Chairman's Choice years and years and years ago... and I probably purchased approximately twenty bottles of it before it disappeared forever. It was so cheap and soooooooo buttery! And I've never been able to find it again. Sad, right? I know.

Octopoda was a Florida discovery. I was down there with my Other Mother Amy and my Other Other Mother Theresa for vacation one time. We needed to stock up on some libations and went to a cool wine store... where I found this bottle of red! A teal octopus on a bottle of red wine? Yes, please! It was $20 but I bought it anyway. It was worth it, too; this particular bottle has traveled the east coast with me!

Behind Octopoda is a bottle of Bogle Phantom. I had a very intense crush on a musician for a while (we shall call him Bearded Beauty) and he recommended this wine to me. It, too, is $20 per bottle, and at the point in my life when the recommendation was given, $20 for a bottle of wine was something I never did. I mean, I was essentially living paycheck to paycheck and trying to keep up with my mortgage. HOWEVER... I traveled north to catch a show and surprise the Bearded Beauty and I took a bottle of Phantom along for afterward.

Bearded Beauty was surprised to see me, and happy to see me, but I think he was equally happy to share a bottle of Bogle Phantom because, let's face it, starving artists are referred to as "starving" for a reason. We don't usually have twenty extra dollars to spend on a bottle of wine.

Thousand Lives has a super cool label and my understanding is it's super cheap too. My Other Other Mother Theresa frequently gifts this to me because the first time she saw it, the label reminded her of me and she felt it belonged in my kitchen. When I told her how delicious the wine was, more bottles appeared! I've now tried a Cabernet, a Shiraz, and a Zinfandel. Each one was incredibly tasty.

And last but certainly not least... MollyDooker! My Pretend Uncle Ed (he is a real person, he's just not really my uncle) introduced me to MollyDooker's The Boxer one Christmas Eve. It is dark and decadent and delicious and worth every cent of the $30 a bottle actually costs. Plus, the artwork is awesome!

My favorite MollyDooker is Two Left Feet. My mom brought me a bottle of this when my dog Agatha passed away (that was a very difficult loss) and My Other Other Mother Theresa gave me a bottle of it for my fortieth birthday as well. The other bottles, The Scooter and The Maitre D', were equally scrumptious. My mom gifted those to me for Christmas one year.

Alright, well... that's today's blog. Sorry I didn't write one yesterday; I had parent-teacher conferences and didn't get home until late. All I could think about was putting on my sweatpants and -- you guessed it! -- pouring a glass of wine! I'll no doubt be doing the same thing tonight after round two.