Today was one of those days that, for reasons far beyond my control, was not the best day ever.  While I don’t necessarily advocate drinking wine for the purpose of dealing with life, even my mom instructed us to have a glass, so who am I to argue?

The Lavenders are fans of wine.  This summer we even tried very unsuccessfully to make our own, and we haven’t given up on a dream to one day own a winery.  We are kind of starting to be able to speak wine language, but we really still have no clue what we are talking about.  I aspire to be like Frasier Crane (NOT Kelsey Grammar who I have come to dislike based on his portrayal on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills) and be able to identify grape, region, and year of each wine based on taste. 

Wine glasses are souvenirs from Disneyland's Food and Wine Festival

But, alas, as of now, I am nowhere near being that cool.

 Ido  know choosing wine out of the hundreds of pretty labels is daunting, so I thought I’d share what we (aspiring wine snobs) are drinking (because who needs a bad day excuse to have a glass?)

What we’re drinking: Alamos Malbec, 2010 (Mendoza, Argentina)

Availability: Trader Joe’s $8.99

Characteristics: Definitely not the driest, but absolutely not sweet, good legs, robust flavor

Goes Good with: Any hearty meat dish, or as an after dinner glass with prime time TV

Doesn’t go good with: a first date : Our lips were pretty purple after only a few sips!

Would we recommend: Yes! Great value, not bad quality, definitely doesn’t taste bad.  We did like the 2009 version better (because 2010 is a very young bottle), so if you have the opportunity to choose, go with the 2009