Day Drinkin' - Must be nice

Thatboy took off the week between Christmas and New Years. We decided this would be an excellent time to make the trip out to Temecula to our wine club. Mostly because we are completely out of wine. Some chick who lives in this house seems to be off her 9-month sobriety wagon.

We joined the wine club at Churon Winery for a couple of reasons:
1) We really like the wines.
2) It's only 2 wines every other month.
3) They don't send you random wine. Every other month you can go and pick out whatever 2 you like.
4) You don't have to go pick up every month, they'll hold your wine for you until you do go pick it up.

Since we hadn't been to Churon since May, we had 8 bottles to pick up. As members we get free tastings, so we took advantage to see if there was anything new we wanted to add to our usual suspects.

We packed up a cooler with cheese and crackers, packed up the dog and baby, and headed out.

We sat outside and enjoyed the day and our little picnic. We also got to try an unreleased late harvest tempranillo. Which was amazing. I can't wait to get a bottle at our next pick-up. Thatbaby can't wait either:

Don't worry - he wasn't driving.

We picked up a healthy dose of reds, including Thatboy's favorite port, and a couple of whites, including the new pinot grigio. So far the first bottle we've opened is the Ruby Cabernet, which is a fairly typical Cabernet. Cabs aren't generally our favorite, but we like the tobacco-iness of this one. And it pairs well with a nice heavy winter pasta dish. Like one of my favorite stroganoff recipes.

I like this dish because it's a true one pot meal - the noodles cook in the sauce/broth so you don't even need to dirty a boiling pot. If you find some nice meaty mushrooms, each bite fills your mouth with good, rich flavor.