daily bliss: wisconsin wine tasting

Wisconsin excels in many categories:

Cheese.

Beer.

Sausage (so I'm told).

The Wisconsin Idea (though currently tarnished and kicked around a bit).

Diverse landscapes.

Outdoor recreation.

Tavern culture.

Other categories need a little work. Tonight I'll focus on Wine.

Last night my friends and I observed our monthly gathering of the illustrious wine club. This month, hosts J and H chose Wisconsin wines as their theme, a great nod to the locavore movement. We enjoyed local eats too--cream puffs, cheeses, and a door county cherry cheese torte (baked by yours truly--look for that post on Tuesday).

When selecting my bottle of wine, I avoided the tasty Prairie Fume, certain someone else would bring it (no one did because everyone thought the same thing), and instead went for total kitsch:

Von Stiehl winery's Naughty Girl. Here's the description from their website: "Elegant yet sassy, she dances on your palate with the grace of a full-bodied red and the racy excitement of fresh raspberries. Layers of dark fruit and curvaceous tannins lead into a smooth and exquisite finish."

The bottle prose is much more suggestive, and much more anthropomorphizing.

My friends M and K were also amused by the name and the prose; instead of just one Naughty Girl, we had three.

Besides a Parallel 44 Cabernet Sauvignon, all of the wines are very sweet, to my taste cloyingly so. Many include layers of other fruits. Naughty Girl, for example includes raspberries, and there was also a Blackberry Merlot.

Wine, like so many things in life, is a matter of taste. The only sweet wines I like are certain semi-dry Rieslings, Moscatos, and demi-sec sparkling wines.

I like my wines floral or flinty, bright or fruit-forward. But not sweet.

As always, wine club provided endless amusement, from K's encyclopedic knowledge of disco tunes, to B's heartfelt high school tapes, to J's awesome dance moves.

I'm hosting next month--yay!--and think I'll choose my favorite summer wine. Guess which one!