Wicked wines and ghoulish grapes: Wine selections for your Halloween party

October 28, 3:38 PMPortland Drinks ExaminerIvy Hover

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Pinot Evil, a perfect wine for a Halloween party
Ivy S. Hover

Anyone who is serious about the art of throwing a Halloween party knows the importance of a fully realized theme, and that includes picking your poison through a selection of haunting and ghastly beverages. Here's a few wine ideas (mostly red, but there's a few whites as well) to be considered for your soiree:

Mike and Drenda Bayliss of Carlton, Oregon's Ghost Hill Cellars produce a delicate and balanced single vineyard, traditional-style Pinot noir. The 2007 vintage is $38 per bottle, and the lore of the ghost on their property dates back to the gold rush days.

Women & Wine posed an All Hallow's Eve query on Facebook and led the discussion with a recommendation of Black Cat Cabernet, which was followed by a shout-out courtesy of Karen from C&J Boutique Nelscott Wine Shop in Lincoln City, Oregon for Ash Holloween Headless Red from Walla Walla, Washington. Released nearby, in the Columbia Valley, you'll find Owen Roe's Sinister Hand.

In California, Sonoma County's Toad Hollow Vineyards offers 2008 Eye of the Toad Dry Pinot Noir Rosé while down in the Sierra foothills, Calaveras County 's Twisted Oak Winery prints a bright red skull -- even better since calaveras translates to "skulls" -- on the label of its limited-production 2007 red blend, River of Skulls ($35; 88% Monastrell, a Spanish Mourvedre clone, and 12% Syrah). Vampire Wine pours the "blood of the vine" and has created a full line of products, ranging from Pinot Grigio to Merlot, complete with plasma dripping artwork and a blood-spattered website.

If one-stop shopping is what you crave, Cost Plus World Market always brings in a special selection of holiday bottles. Their most recent ad featured 7 Deadly Zins ($13.99) from Lodi, Cali. and R. Winery's Australian Evil Cabernet Sauvignon ($9.99).

The full-bodied Hungarian Bull's Blood (aka "Egri Bikavér") is another decadence and appropriate choice, and while the French import Pinot Evil may have the see-no-evil monkeys instead of dripping blood on the label, it's still fun.

Casillero del Diablo from the Concha y Toro Winery in Chile is a product line that contains white and red wines, along with a devilish legend, for around $10 a bottle. Also from Chile is the bargain priced Gato Negro (Black Cat in Spanish), the Cabernet-Merlot blend (1.5 liter bottle) is available for $8.99 for at New Seasons.

If you're in Illinois take a look around for Prairie Pumpkin Wine; priced at about $12, it's a fruit wine made from pumpkins. Meanwhile, Kentucky's Elk Creek Vineyards is tied to Halloween in more ways than just its Bone Dry Red Cabernet Sauvignon ($19.99) and Ghostly White Chardonnay ($14.99); the vineyards owner, Curtis Sigretto, is also a partner in the spooktacular shopping experience known as Halloween Express. If only the stores had a license to sell wine.

Articles from other Examiners
Sinister Halloween wines for your party
Adults can celebrate Halloween with a line up of Halloween wines
Dracula's Blood wine: drink it in deep for Halloween

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