School night wine's mighty fine

After work, a trip to the bookstore, a mile swim at the Y and phone conversations with a couple friends, my mom and my brother-in-law (I love productive workweek evenings!), I cooked a tasty dinner of Spiced Mini Burgers with Couscous Salad and had a glass of school night wine.

Yes, school night wine. It's a wine snob term that Brian & I have adopted recently. It refers to wine that is inexpensive, tasty and perfect with a weeknight meal. For us, that's a wine with a lot of taste in the $10 to $15 range, such as the bottle of Columbia-Crest 2003 Grand Estates Shiraz that we cracked open this week.

I took a peek in our wine journal that we started earlier this year to find other school night wine suggestions to share here. Among them:

• Rioja Vega Crianza 2003, a Spanish wine that we described as simple, but fun, with a soft and velvety mouth feel
• Dynamite Merlot 2005, a Sonoma Valley wine that we thought was a good summer merlot because it's easy and light with a slow finish
  
• Le Volte Toscana 2005, an Italian red that has a spicy nose and a quick finish (and is much better after it's had a chance to open up)
• 2006 Bonterra Viognier, a Northern California white that we thought was excellent with a buttery, rich taste and a bright finish
• 2006 Fontana Candida Frascati, a superior summer Italian white that was dry but refreshing

School nights do not have to be dull. Cheers!