Now opening: one ENORMOUS bottle of wine

Hey thirsty birds!
Thirsty Thursday is taking a field trip this week, so I will be posting about the wine we opened last weekend, and next week you'll get to read all about our winery visit. I might even take Mrs. P.

Since TH and I are on Spring Break this week, we decided to finally open the giant bottle of wine I won at the company Christmas raffle last December. I believe it's the equivalent of four bottles, and since wine starts to go bad once air hits it, we wanted to open it at such a time that we might be able to drink it over the course of a few consecutive days or all at once with some friends. Our friends are all very busy, so the former choice presented itself in the form of Spring Break, and we leapt at it! (Literally, the bottle is that big.)

For comparative purposes - the one on the right is a "normal" sized bottle.

Tonight's wine, then, is a 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon from Rodney Strong Estate Vineyards.
Now, part of the reason we have waited so long to open this is that TH and I were rather at a loss as to HOW to open it. It's giant, and we have but a few normal-sized corkscrews. So, as men will do, TH started with a pocket knife to get through the wax...
It didn't pop right off after the incision made 'round the tip, so he went in again from the top...
And tore off bit by bit the wax.

The cork did not want to go gently into the good night... but TH can be persuasive...
...and destructive.

But, finally, the wine was liberated!

It was delicious.

I think I would call it full and smooth, mostly. It went wonderfully with my leftover cashew chicken and fried rice, and would pair equally well, I think, with a steak or something hearty. TH had his with some leftover Irish Stew, and loved that. The wine was fruity, but not sweet, quite mild, actually. It had a lot of flavor, but not a lot of bite, which I really like in a wine. I do believe you can purchase this wine in smaller bottles (if you don't win it at a raffle), and I recommend it for sure. I have no idea how much it might cost, though. It was good enough that it might be expensive.

As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, today TH and I are headed up to one of my favorite wineries, Chateau St Michelle in Woodinville, Washington. Look for that post next week, and expect a few more field trips in the next few months! Happy drinking!

**Update: it is Thursday and we are still drinking this bottle. Should the opportunity arise for you, I recommend sharing a bottle this big with as many people as possible - it won't last much longer for us!

I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day. ~Frank Sinatra