Cheer Up With Food

Aureole Las Vegas  at the  Mandalay Bay , has recently launched an event called  #ChasingThursdays .  Every Thursday Aureole will be offering exclusive cigar pairings from  Nat Sherman , showcasing a cast of hard-to-find and wines from their " Unusual Suspects " wine list all priced at $39 per bottle, and will have menu items 20% off (except Happy Hour menu, small plates, and the $39 wine bottles... Still a good deal though for a fine dining restaurant!).  You get to enjoy all of this while listening to live jazz music and overlooking the swans at Aureole's outdoor patio. I love the aesthetics of this place: Happy Hour deals: Aureole's four-story wine tower.  The Wine Steward Angels are the ones who retrieve the wines: Some of the wines I saw while walking up and down the stairs that wrap around the wine tower: My husband here sippin on some 2007 Domaine Monte de Luz Tannat: The  tannat  is a red w...

A few days ago, California Pizza Kitchen  announced their partnership with Colby Red , a red wine whose proceeds support charities that promote heart health.  Colby Red is specifically a California cuvee of Cabernet Sauvignon , Merlot , Petite Sirah , Shiraz , &  Zinfandel .  This sounds like a wonderful blend and definitely good for the heart! This wine was inspired by Colby Groom who endured two back to back heart surgeries as a child.  He enlisted his father, a winemaker, to create a wine that raises money to help others. To hear more about this story, check out this YouTube video .  After watching this video I was moved: CPK will serve Colby Red on their menu (by the glass and bottle) at all their locations through the end of April. Also CPK has also pledged to donate up to $10,000 to charities focused on heart health this year (very nice!). In other news, CPK's Valentine's Day menu will be available for four days from 2/14 thro...

When my friend invited me to a chocolate & wine party that she was going to host, I for sure wanted to go!  I always learn something new about wine whenever I see her :-) At the beginning of the party, we got skewers to pick strawberries, bananas, brownies, or  blondies  (cookies) to dip in the chocolate fondue : We each had a wine marker... Mine looked like a blue Casper ! Here's some of the wine we sampled from- We tried  cabernet sauvignon , which is a red, bold wine (it was too bold for me).  The first brand we drank was Rex Goliath : My friend told us about a simple technique when drinking a wine, you suck in a little air to oxygenate the drink thats in your mouth so you can taste the flavor of the wine more instead of tasting the alcohol!  The next cabernet we tried was Cruz Alta Reserve .  I drank this wine first without oxygenating it, and it tasted like a Sharpie permanent marker o_o.  Second time I sipped the dr...