The latest installment of the Primo Vino Art series, celebrating cool labels on wine bottles: Cycles Gladiator.
The art is merely a ripoff of a classic piece, created in 1895 by French painter Georges Massias, but hey, I didn’t know that until I read the label. There you go, putting the snooty “oh” in Pinot.
Hot on the heels of the last entry in the Primo Vino Art series, which celebrates cool wine labels, I bring you this: X Winery
Pairs well with SCIENCE. And snarky, morbidly humourous artificial intelligence.
It actually does pair well with science, what with an infinite number of potential riffs like “solve for x” or “plot x versus inebriation” and so forth. I’ll just stop there.
Indeed X does mark the spot, and this is a very pleasing cabernet blend. Suprisingly smooth, yet not flavorless! Usually it seems like those two qualities are mutually exclusive. Perhaps they still are, but the bar graphs are fairly even here at least. Drink up… you monster.
It’s a drinkable affair, with hints of cucumber and a clean, outdoorsy feel. Would get again if I saw it for cheap. Pairs well with…. a hot tub!
is it truly indelible? Hmm, maybe a little.
Third installment of the celebration of awesome pieces of art for wine labels; this California Zinfandel.
Scratch made pizza is the best. THE. BEST.
Here we’ve got freshmade dough from the market, part skim mozzarella in block form (yes, that’s a lot of shredding), turkey pepperoni, basil, red onion, and orange pepper. My favorite combo! Mmmmmmmmmm
A populist wine. A wine for the proletariat! ”A wine for the people” it says on the bottle. Tried it a few weeks ago and it is, certainly the motherland’s finest. Drink up, comrades.
How many times have you bought a certain wine just because the label grabbed you? If you’re anything like me, the answer is probably uncountable. I do have certain wines that I keep coming back to, but on the whole, I like to experiment and try new things, see what’s out there.
In this spirit, there’s a new series in town, and it’s called Primo Vino Art. It’s just basically wine bottles that I think look cool. We’ll kick it off with this über-nerdy label for a California vintner called Educated Guess.
Saw it at Whole Foods and just had to try it based on the bottle alone. Happily, this was one of the more intricate and tasty bottles I’ve had lately, so I think I will be returning to it. For me, a wine has got to have subtlety and nuance to make it worth giving it a second go-round, and I have already bought my second bottle of this!
Also, I’ve been trading vintage photoshop tricks with a certain mister Ryan Allen lately, and a picture I took of this bottle got the full treatment, so it seems appropriate to post it here. For those so interested, there’s vignetting, chromatic aberration added (via ‘lens correction’), a red/green color gradient layer with low opacity (makes the colors look like a faded 80′s photo, a strong light leak coming from the upper right, and a bunch of extras applied in a PS actions file Ryan sent. In the future, there might be some photoshop tutorials dished on these subjects, but for now, enjoy the retro-goodness:
Third apple in the ongoing series, today we look at the Pepin Heights Sweet Sixteen apple. With a name like that, you KNOW it’s gonna be good.
And tasty it was! It was not as sweet as you might guess from the name, although there was not even a hint of tartness in this apple, so when you take a bite, all you taste is the sweetness. The texture on the inside is quite soft, in an excellent way. Typically I prefer my apples to be more like 7.5ish on the “crunchy inside” scale, but this type is well-worthy of an exception to that preference. The texture of it sort of makes it candy-like. You’d have no trouble getting kids to eat these.
The skin on the apple was not crunchy at all. It seemed to want to remain in strips, like you could almost peel this apple just by peeling back the skin. I tried it, and you could actually peel it, just like an orange once you tried for a little bit. Unusual skin for an apple, but it was cool in it’s own odd way.
These apples, peeled, would make an absolutely incredible pie or crisp. If there are still some left at the grocery store next week, I think I might try that. Irregardless of how I plan to eat them, I definitely want to get more of these. They are a most delicious apple!
sweetness: 6
tartness: 0
juicyness: 6
crunchy inside: 2
crunchy skin: 1
And as usual, picture taken with the canon 50 f/1.8. Settings: f/11, 1/2 sec @ ISO 100 tripod mounted
The first apple I decided to try was the pacific rose apple. It’s slightly pinkish in color, like a red apple with a hint of a pink lady apple in there somewhere. It’s definitely sweet, not very much tartness to it at all. One lovely thing about this apple is that it is thoroughly crunchy. It’s about as crunchy of an apple as I’d enjoy, I believe. Anything moreso would get fatiguing. This property alone sets it as a desirable specimen.
I busted out the apple slicer to cut it into 8ths and toss the core. Ignoring the advice of that sign in the store, I do think that sliced is really is the most enjoyable way to eat an apple. I’ll probably use it for the rest of the others to come.
I’d most definitely get this type again, although it remains to be seen how long they’ll be around for. Is it something I’d eat everyday? Yeah, it may be. I doubt I’d be able to find them in Organic.
sweetness: 8
tartness: 2
juiciness: 6
crunchy inside: 8
crisp shell: 9
As before, photo with the new fifty! Lovin this thing. Framed the apple with some delicious looking bok-choy.
The Piñata apple was one I’d never tried until now and I’m not sure if I’d get it again. From the exterior, things looked good: large size but not overly giant, nice red color, and a sturdy stem up top. Taking a bite, the inside is a light yellow(not white), and the texture is crunchy as can be. It’s a bit too crunchy on the inside for my taste. The flavor is certainly more on the tart side than the sweet side, although it is not completely devoid of sweetness. It was available as an organic, and based on the looks, I got 5 of them, for my weekday lunch. I think my standby of Gala might have been a better choice, but I’ll keep eating these and give them a chance.
Update: as the week went on, I did get one that was sweeter. It did redeem the Piñata slightly, although I think the majority of these are probably more on the tart side. All in all, I’d say they are a decent apple, but there are much better ones for my taste.
tartness: 8
sweetness: 4
juicyness: 4
crunchy inside: 9.5
crisp shell: 8
I took this picture with my new 50mm Canon f/1.8, with a setting of 1/4th sec. f/11 @ ISO 100. Tripod mounted in the kitchen. Tweaked white balance with Curves in Photoshop. Only minor selective color. Didn’t need much adjustment.
