Hazlit Vineyards- Red Cat @@@@@ (5 corks)

Retails: $8.99 (Total Wine)

I'm usually an absolute skeptic when it comes to white wine. I'm not quite certain why. I find that more often than not, they are flavorless or extremely acidic with very little complexity. Very few have ever knocked my socks off enough to polish off a whole bottle in one sitting (that's my "excellent wine" barometer).

I also used to date a guy who loved white wines---cheap whites. He once showed up at my house with every bottle of white wine Arbor Mist and Gallo makes (and yes, for the record, Gallo does make some decent wines but their whites are like drinking rubbing alcohol). He also had this annoying habit of opening a bottle, sampling, and re-corking it and moving on to another. I was forced to choke down sip after sip of awful white wine all for the sake of love. Needless to say, the guy is a goner and I'm left with a house full of disgusting half-drank bottles of cheap white wine. At least cheap reds make excellent Sangria...recipe to follow...

ANYWHO, so, Total Wine always features a wine every month and this month it happened to be Red Cat, a ruby red wine with a clever label that sparkled through a clear bottle. I'm a sucker for good design and anything sparkly. Total Wine has yet to lead me astray with their monthly wine picks, so I decided to take my chances and try a bottle. To my delight, it was fruity, refreshing and beautifully light. This is an excellent summer wine---when the weather gets so hot that red wine makes you sweat bullets, pick up a bottle of this and enjoy the cooling sensation of this crisp pick. Living in Florida, this is an excellent all-the-time wine. The color is exquisite, almost the same color as grenadine. You'll taste pomegranate, cherries and even the pucker

roxy.cape's "Bad Red Wine Sangria" Recipe

Ingredients:
- 1 bottle of bad red (or super dry red such as a Burgundy)
- 2 oranges, 1 sliced, 1 juiced
- 2 green apples, sliced
- lime juice
-lemon juice
- 1/4 cup brandy
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup seltzer water

Mix all of the ingredients together in a giant pitcher with a wooden spoon. Mix until the sugar has disolved and the fruits are well mixed. Store in the fridge, serve over ice. Ole!