The package has arrived!

My smiling Mr. FedEx just paid me a visit and left me a box I've been eagerly awaiting all week long. It's merely inauspicious brown cardboard, but it's just the right size and shape to hold two bottles of wine. It's my shipment of Muscat from the Purple Cow Vineyards in Forest Grove, Oregon!

It all started when my sister told me about a Spanish Muscat she tried that was very similar to those she has enjoyed in Alsace. I was surprised by this, because I know she's even less interested in sweet wine than I am, and I thought it must be similar to the Moscato d'Asti that I didn't especially care for. When I asked her about this, here's how she described the kind of Muscat that she likes: "The ones I have had have been very dry. It has a very fruity flavor, with a distinct note of citrus. So the wine has a very light, fresh taste."

Though I tend to like reds much better than whites, this description sounded great to me. So when I researched Muscat online and found that those of the Purple Cow Vineyards are favorably compared to what is made in Alsace, I was pretty excited to try it. I was even more excited to hear that the 2008 vintage is considered "dry"--in fact, the Purple Cow website called it a "cult classic for its supreme dryness"--and the 2009 is "off dry"--it was chilled with 1% residual sugar--which sounded like a perfect combination for one of my fun little taste tests. If there is anything I enjoy more than tasting a new wine, it is comparing two or three so I can try to decide which one I like best.

My only complaint about this whole procedure is that, in ordering these bottles from the Purple Cow website, I basically ended up buying two bottles for the price of . . . three. But I am in hopes that it will have been worth it. I've got the bottles chilling right now. I'm not sure I'll be up long enough for a taste test tonight, since I have to get up at the butt crack of dawn for work in the morning, but I promise one is forthcoming as soon as is humanly possible.

Oh, yeah, and speaking of "as soon as possible"--I do realize it has been more than two months since my last post. Rest assured that this is not because I haven't been enjoying a glass of wine on occasion. If you were pitying my lack of posting, understand that this did not mean a lack of quaffing. There was just nothing to write home about . . . until now.

Are you wondering at the picture? No, that's not what my FedEx guy looks like (thank goodness). That's not even what I look like right now, even though I am pretty happy. It's because for some reason, no matter how I rearranged my Google search terms for a Purple Cow Muscat image, Austin Powers kept popping up. I took it as a sign.