Having the house to yourself once in a while can be a wonderful thing. Last night was one of those nights when my wife had plans and the apartment was to be mine alone for a solid few hours.
While I love spending every minute of the day with my wife, there are definitely things we both don’t enjoy doing together. One of those things is watching “The Walking Dead.” Another one of those things is eating meat. Yes, I married a vegetarian.
With her out of the house, I had a lot of little things I wanted to take care of, and then my plan was to sit back, relax and catch up on some episodes featuring my favorite zombies. On nights like this, when it’s just me, I prefer not to cook. This is because I don’t want to waste my “me time” on cooking and cleaning up. Plus, there’s no use having leftovers of meat my wife won’t eat in the first place. That’s why on my alone nights, I almost always order takeout or pick up something prepared.
Living in New York, I am lucky enough to have Katz’s Deli directly between my subway stop and my apartment, so on my way home I stopped in and picked up one of their delicious pastrami sandwiches. You may think nothing goes better with a delicious deli sandwich than beer, but try a great glass of wine, and I think you’d change your tune.
After grabbing the sandwich, I headed to my local wine shop and picked up a bottle of Old School Rouge. I was introduced to this wine years ago when Keith, VinePair’s Chief Wine Geek, first sold it in his wine shop. The wine is a blend of Syrah and Grenache and just tastes delicious. If you’re looking for a solid French red wine, this is it. The wine comes from the Languedoc-Rousillon region of France, a go-to region for me because it’s known for making killer affordable wine and Old School Rouge definitely represents the region well.
Old School Rouge is one of those smooth, easy drinking red wines that tastes like cherries, strawberries and blackberries. A wine that you enjoy so much, you could very easily finish the bottle. The wine stands up very well to red meat, like my pastrami, and tastes even better with a slight chill on it. If you care about these things, the wine is also organic. There have been many nights when I’ve turned on a movie and just opened this up sans food as well. The wine is good enough to drink on its own.
A big bonus for me with Old School Rouge is that it’s closed with a screw cap. I may love a night alone, but I usually don’t plan on finishing an entire bottle myself, especially on a Monday. This wine allows me to have a glass or two and then easily screw the cap back on and put the rest in the fridge. It can then either be drunk by my wife when she gets home, depending on how her night went, or by me the next night when I get home from work. I always secretly hope for the latter!
