Filling Our Love Letter Box

I've finally found a wine to put in our love letter box! It tooks months of research but it's finally on our way!

The reason it was so hard to find a suitable wine was because I had so many criteria:

-It has to age well. We don't plan on cracking this thing open for awhile! But we did agree that we would open it on our 15th anniversary so it won't spoil. We would then replace it with a wine from our wedding year and close up the box again without reading the love letters.
-It has to be from either 2009 (the year we marry) or 2005 (the year we met).
-It has to be light and fruity because Mr. Lab isn't much of a wine drinker and that's all he likes.
-It has to have a pretty bottle. Naturally. :)
-It has to be relatively inexpensive.
-It has to be highly rated to ensure quality and taste.
-It has to be from Europe (I added this one late because it's ourdream honeymoon location).

So what did we end up with? I can't even pronounce it! It's a *deep breath* 2005 Perrin Chateauneuf du Pape Les Sinards Rhone Red Blends from Chateauneuf du Pape, France-Rhone. *whew*

Source

Basically, it's a red, fruity wine from France that meets all of our criteria.

I bought it from Wine.com for $38.99. I was sold after reading a couple of its reviews and the winemaker's notes:

"Perrin Chateauneuf du Pape Les Sinards is made from the traditional varieties of Chateauneuf du Pape from Chateau de Beaucastel's own vineyard and from other top quality growers in the appellation. Predominately Grenache, Syrah, Cinsault and Mourvedre, the wine is rich and silky with a deep red color. With the gamy, earthy quality that Beacastel is know for, Les Sinards is long on the palate with rounded tannins."

Yum, yum, and yum!

I just hope the slight wine lush in me doesn't break into this thing just to try it out! I'll have to remember to keep the house stocked with wine so I'm not tempted.

I had to have it shipped to our best man's house in South Carolina since Wine.com doesn't ship to Georgia. I also ran into this problem when ordering our bridal party wine and champagne for when we are getting ready. All that is left to do now is write our love letters and put an appropriate quote on the box! We're writing our letters after we get our marriage license next week (We've already attempted this once but had a minor fail. More later!)

Has anyone ever tried this wine? How was it?

"Mini-moon" Options

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! :) I can't believe I only get one V-Day as an engaged girl. :(

Chris and I were discussing possible mini honeymoon, or "mini-moon", options today. We're forgoing a traditional honeymoon for a few reasons. The main reason is because we'd rather have Chris's mom help with wedding costs than with a honeymoon that we can pay for later (it's traditional for the groom's parents to pay for the honeymoon, btw). Chris will also be starting his physical therapy clinicals around then and I'll be finishing my last class for my broadcast news degree (I'll basically be working with the news station UGA just bought, WNEG, two days a week in the fall). So neither one of us wants to take off too much time from school for a honeymoon, especially since the holidays will be right around the corner. At a later date when we have some time and money, we will travel to Europe for our "real" honeymoon. We both have always wanted to visit places like Rome and Paris. We're figuring that we'll have the money for a two week vacation in Europe before our 5 year anniversary.

In the meantime, we do think it is important to get away and spend some time together, just the 2 of us, immediately after the wedding. So we've been brainstorming some relatively inexpensive and short honeymoons we could take. We finally narrowed it down to 2 choices and are having our friends and family now help us with the final decision. 

Option 1: Charleston, S.C.

Charleston is on our short list for places we'd love to live one day. Problem is, I've never been there! We thought it would be a fun place to go so we could not only visit such a gorgeous and historic city, but also "test-run" it for future possibilities. Another plus to this city: it's only a couple of hours away from Savannah so getting there and back would be a snap! Not to mention that it has a lot of the same features we love about Savannah, so we're sure to have a great time.

Option 2: Disney World

Do I really have to say much about Disneyworld? It's freakin' Disneyworld! haha Because of the economic downturn, they're constantly offering discounts and we would be going during an "off-season" time right before the holiday travels start up. So we know that we could get some great deals and be able to see all the parks for a low rate. The only real problem with going to Orlando would be the drive time from Savannah to the parks then back home to Athens.

We really want some feedback from people who have gone to either of these places recently and would like to give their reasons why we should pick one over the other. I'm especially wanting to hear from anyone who's been to Charleston since I've never been. So, I now open the floor to debate! :)