Cupcakes are delicious!

I am a huge fan of Cupcake vineyards wines. The cabernet sauvignon is my alltime favorite. We recently went to the beach and I bought that and a bottle of Cupcake's sauvignon blanc to share with everyone else there. It turns out no one else was really all that into wine so I ended up drinking a lot of wine by myself. And no, that has nothing to do with how I hurt my ankle. That was sheer stupidity and my own clumsiness there. I'm better now but I'm certain people were thinking I needed to lay off the sauce after that little incident. Anyway, I don't have anymore Cupcake wines to share the label notes tonight but I cannot recommend these wines highly enough. Once again I bought the wine for the cute label/vineyard name and ended up being very pleasantly surprised. I love when that happens!

Chateau O'Brien - Northpoint Red

This Virginia red wine was chosen for me by the guy at the wine shop. I said I didn't want anything too "oak" flavored and this is what he gave me. I would have to say that it is very much too oak-y for my tastes but it did seem that he just guessed and grabbed something when I asked his opinion. Oh well. It was basically free when I used that gift card so I'll definitely not complain. My hubby and I sampled this with a much cheaper cabernet sauvignon The Chateau O'Brien was $13.99 and I would have to say that I much preferred the cheaper wine in this case. I'm fairly new to red wine anyway so this might be just amazing to someone who is a true red wine fan but I would pass on this next time. To be fair, it really isn't comparing apples to apples here because this isn't the same type of wine. This one is called their "Northpoint Red" and is a mix of several different kinds.

Label notes:

Chateau O'Brien at Northpoint - Northpoint Red - 2006
Our Northpoint Red is blended with Tannat, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and Petit Verdo.

Now since I have only tried 2 of these above wines, I can't really be a fair judge I don't guess. I am definitely looking forward to doing some wine tastings here soon. The fall in this area is a good time to find festivals and wine tastings.

Woohoo, mama can't wait! Overall verdict on this one? Not my favorite. Probably would be good with a steak or some pasta but not just one to drink on its own in my opinion.

Lucky Duck - Cabernet Sauvignon

OK, so I could not resist this when I saw it at Walmart. Yes, people. Here you can buy wine at "the Walmarts". Hallelujah! (Just for the record, I don't really call it that but I know some people who do.) Anyway, I was of course shopping with both little ones in tow and that always makes me throw crazy stuff in the shopping cart. This bottle of wine was on the end cap and had an interesting label (I am a sucker for cute labels, what can I say). Even more interesting was the price. I am embarrassed to tell how much this wine cost. Ok, ok. A whopping $3.97. I know what you're thinking. Can't taste good, right? Surprise! It DID! I was thinking this was going to be the "Boone's Farm" wine cooler type stuff but really it is pretty good red. We had it with a very (AHEM) gourmet meal of fish sticks, sweet potato fries and frozen peas. Why is it I always seem to drink good wine with a not so gourmet meal? But I digress...this wine was good stuff folks. Not too sweet and wine cooler-y, not too much oak. I am pleasantly surprised.

Label notes:

Lucky Duck - Cabernet Sauvignon - Chile
Lucky you! We searched the gobe to create a collection of authentic,
great tasting international wines, with layers of flavor. Rich cherry and
fruity blackberry notes. Enjoy Lucky Duck alone or paired with red meats
or pasta.

We did a side by side comparison with another bottle of red wine I had left from using up the Christmas gift card from Christmas (see the Grey Ghost post). That was a fun experiment.