What does your Spouse or Significant Other drink with you?

WINE TALK
41

Since I live in California, am I required to say “the wife?” [cheers.gif]

My wife is a fellow wine lover.

Her palate skews to Bordeaux and Burgundy, but she’s happy with most any wine.

She has a great palate (better than mine but I use more words… [whistle.gif] )

We blind taste and she is a skilled amateur taster, usually able to peg grape, country, age-range with surprising insight.

Spottswoode is her favorite Cali cab, Meo Camuzet’s line her favored Burgundy, and she likes Lynch Bages and Pichon Baron (enough to have visited Pichon Baron when she was in the neighborhood a couple years ago.)

She likes California chardonnays…Aubert is her favorite. Hyde, Peter Michael, Lynmar, Tres Perlas Brown Ranch, and other pop in.

For domestic pinot, she likes Domaine De la Cote, Williams Selyem, Rochioli, Rivers Marie, and many more that are escaping my mind right now…she’s a general pinophile, I think.

I wonder if I drink with her more than she drinks with me.

42

My SO did not like whites or tannic reds that in her words “would suck the liquid out of my mouth!” On the other hand she loved over top pinots like Belle Glos, Kanzler, Dehlinger and KB. She said they were so good she could “slurp a whole bottle down myself” and she usually did. They became known as “Happy Pinots” a term which is firmly ensconced in the local lexicon here and at every Pinot winery we ever visited. As in THAT’S A HAPPY PINOT! She was one-of-a-kind. RIP @IslandMelodee [cheers.gif]

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43

My wife likes pretty much everything I open with one exception - ancient wines. Neither of us are beer drinkers and she is less enamored with certain spirits as I am (brandy, marc, grappa, etc., but she does love Calvados)

44

My wife drinks almost everything with me. Before we got together she liked wine, but it was mostly inexpensive quaffers, and while she doesn’t study it, her palate has really aligned pretty well with mine and she appreciates the varied wines that we drink. Except Savennieres…she just can’t get that one.

45

My SO follows my lead. He drinks everything I drink, from cocktails through wine. I am the procurer and collector, and he enjoys whatever I bring out. Very simple and very enjoyable.

46

My wife and I are very aligned when it comes to wines we like and how much we drink. We were dating when I started getting into wine so we grew into it together and its always been viewed as a complement to our shared enjoyment of cooking and food in general. I do most of the buying but each night when we are preparing dinner we go through the pairing options together to see what works. A few nights ago for instance we roasted a pork loin with roasted potatoes and a simple arugula salad. I went into the cellar and came back with a dry German Riesling, dry Austrian Riesling, pinot from Oregon and a Red Burg. We had Riesling the two previous nights so she decided Oregon. 2015 Arterberry Maresh ended up being a little young, but still a very enjoyable pair. We have visited a lot of wine regions together as well which is great to put faces to the bottles we have enjoyed. Tuscany a few times, south of France, Rhone, Champagne, Bordeaux, Rioja, and various regions in CA. Another thing to note is she is actually the instigator in our house when it comes to opening that second (and sometimes 3rd! champagne.gif ) bottle on the weekends.

The only way we slightly differ is cocktails. My preference is for gin and a dry martini is the drink of choice. She prefers the slight sweetness of bourbon based drinks and a boulevardier is her go to. I enjoy bourbon as well on occasion but there is something about a clean martini that gets me every time. We both agree on the magic of a good Negroni which is probably the most consumed cocktail in our house.

With a busy work schedule and active kids, I don’t have much time or frankly much interest in offlines anymore so I’m very to happy to have a sig other that enjoys wine and food as much as I do.

47

More than anything else, my wife drinks orange wines with me. They are just about the only ones she ask me to buy more of! That and port.

She’ll also drink riesling and champagne. Reds (aside from the port) are a tough sell.

48

My wife has a fantastic palate but would prefer to drink Helles or Kolsch instead of wine. I think it’s more experiential for her. She likes Overnoy Savagnin because we shared a bottle in Nice together. She likes Lopez de Heredia and Remelluri because we visited them. Generally though she prefers low alcohol wines, or light fruity wines. Like Jura Poulsard or Beaujolais.

49

Luckily/unluckily my beautiful bride does not drink wine (a glass of champagne less then 5 times a year). She will drink 1 or 2 rum and diet cokes on a ‘night off and out’. Used to drink late harvest riesling but has been a few years for that. Needless to say she is the designated driver of the two.

50

Everything champagne.gif

51

She grew up on old Bordeaux, Champagne, the neighbour’s cider and la goutte de Mamie (her grandmother’s eau-de-vie).
As years went by, she picked up a love for Loire CF, Sancerre, Chablis, Gimlets and Moscow Mules.
I tried with all my might to bring her over to dessert wines, oxidative whites and Burgundy PN but to no avail.
She can outdrink most of them and still hold an eloquent conversation.
She despises all this wine talk and all these wine terms and all that wine etiquette.
She’s freakin’ wonderful.

52

We agree on most Cab’s and red’s from Rhone. We differ on Douro (my fav), and she likes her tempranillo’s, rioja’s, carmenere’s and malbec’s.

53

My wife drinks wine most evenings, 98% of the time it is some inexpensive NZ Sav Blanc. I’ve tried so many different whites with her, and this is what she loves. It’s that easy. Occasionally she enjoys some Ridge or Bedrock Zin. She definitely does not like most of what I drink. She thinks my palate is horrid. She’s always right.

54

She loves the “Three B’s” of Italy; Barolo, Barbaresco and Brunello. Loves non spoofy Bordeaux and Burgundy and can’t drink American wines (sugar/alcohol).

Bloody Mary’s or Margaritas on Sundays.

But if she is going to pop something by herself; Italian Whites and Provence Roses. She loves bubbly, but just the lighter ones like good Prosecco and can’t stand yeasty Champagnes.

AND - She’s a hophead -

55

Simple answer: Yes

Our tastes in wine, beer, and booze are nearly identical. 99% alignment on beer and booze, and 95+% on wine. It’s rare when I like a wine and my wife doesn’t. I do all the purchasing and make all wine choices for meals. She knows zip about wine and is fine with that. I am, too. As long as I have a partner who appreciates it, that’s all that matters to me!

56

My wife doesn’t generally like wine, but she will tip a glass or two on special occasions when I open “the ones she likes”. Like Lewelling or Shafer HSS.

57

Sounds like a handful

58

My wife is a fantastic match for me in more ways that I can say…strong alignment on wines we like is a nice bonus.

Neither of us are all that narrow in our preferences, although we don’t generally enjoy wines which are low on structure or very ripe, and we both have limited pyrazine tolerance. Our general wheelhouse is earthy reds (still showing some fruit) and crisp whites/roses - whatever seems like it will go well with the food at hand. She has a really good palate and an appreciation for wine knowledge, although it’s not a thing she pursues. That’s more my approach.

As for differences:

  • She has a slightly higher tolerance for heat & ripeness than I do, and she prefers less-funky wines as well as reds that are less dark-fruited. For example, Grenache and the southern Rhone are her very favorites, while my Rhone preferences are a little more northern.
  • She has a higher tolerance for oak as well, especially in wines made from Bordeaux grapes - it needs to be pretty prominent for her to pick up on it.
  • She has a stronger lean towards reds than I do and is less interested in the occasional sweet wine.
  • Neither of us are big fans of warm-climate pinot, but she’s even more particular than I am. It’s not a go-to grape for us.

In the non-wine realm, things diverge a little more. I’m more interested in beer and wooded spirits than she is (she likes Irish whiskey and Scotch if it’s not peaty but doesn’t go for bourbon/rye as much), and she has a higher tolerance for bitter elements in drinks - she likes Negronis more than I do, for example.

All in all, our preferences overlap quite well. [highfive.gif]

59

Hind sight, this may have made for a great poll however I’m sure Victor would have found a flaw [pwn.gif]

That said, its fun reading through these and lots of commonality to be found.

I’d also just ante that my wife can handle one glass, after two I’m peeling her off the floor lol. Well not that bad, she does get quite giggly. Plenty of funny stories there.

And maybe one of my favorite moments was when she was traveling and in San Diego for a conference; she calls me from a restaurant with her friends to find out what wine on the list she would like lol. I actually talked to the waiter, Meomi it was, or at least the best match on their list for her tastes.

60

Sounds like she and my wife, Christine, would get along great. Similar tastes as I mentioned earlier, Caymus and Belle Glos. What’s that Chard her and her friends all like? La Crema! Two glasses and she’s bouncing off the walls and lots of fun but not much fun the next day :wink: Has finally learned to just not go near mixed drinks.