wine Wednesday: we all scream for wine ice cream!

just wow. anybody who’s ever had a gruesome, wallow-inducing break-up, something rooftop-shoutingly phenomenal to celebrate or just an everyday case of feeling utterly decadent will totally be able to relate to the sheer awesomeness of this find: Mercer’s Wine Ice Cream. in the ultimate 2-great-tastes-that-taste-great-together combo, the most clichéd and delicious heartbreak/celebration/indulgence go-to foods confirm what i’ve always known: wine and ice cream are made for each other.

no, friends. this is not ice cream that tastes like wine. it is not some paltry fruity sorbet bullshit purporting to have hints of Merlot or Chardonnay. this is full-fledged, dense, high-quality ice cream that is made with real, alcoholic wine inside. yes, you can have your ice cream and get drunk on it, too! okay, well maybe not that much. it is only 5% alcohol, so i think you’d be ice-cream ill before ever really catching a buzz. but i wouldn’t ever, for example, serve it at a 5 year old’s birthday party or anything. i mean, right?

so obvs, i had to find out what the deal was. as you can see, i ordered 7 of the 8 flavors Mercer’s makes and invited some of my girls over for a tasting. why 7? they ship in cases of 7, so i figured we could do without the Spice flavor. for around $100 with shipping (overnight on dry ice), i got the goods. lucky Yankees who can just go to their local market and pick up as much as they want! i also had tons of bubbles left over from the holidays. what could be more perfect and girly than a Saturday evening of wine and wine ice cream? um. only watching a pirated advance version of Magic Mike XXL during. but no, we didn’t do that. no, really. but it was discussed. anyhoo . . .

bein’ that we all sophisticated an’ whatnot, we set up our tasting session in the order you’d normally do a wine tasting (from what we could remember) — white to red with sparkling last. (after a warmer-upper cheese plate and bottle of red, of course.) there was definitely not a flavor we’d throw out of the bed, y’all. notes on each, below. none was super-boozy tasting or anything. and being the responsible ice cream drunks we are, we literally only took mini, 2-bite sized scoops of each. so i have 6 (Ms. M took one off my hands) almost-full pints still staring at me every night from my freezer! ugh.

i can definitely see any of these as great additions to a super-foodie dessert and would enjoy all of them on their own again. rating: highly recommended. let me know if y’all have had a chance to try and which flavors you like!

Riesling
as much as something so creamy can be light and refreshing, this was. with a hint of pear. would be great as a fruit tart topper.

Peach White Zinfandel
as Ms. M says, not your mama’s Sutter Home! it’s actually like a really nice homemade peach ice cream, with the peach surely outweighing the Zinfandel. and the Georgia ladies should know.

Red Raspberry Chardonnay
this was the first one where we could really taste any wine. perfect light mix of buttery Chard and the berries.

Cherry Merlot
now we start getting a lot richer and fruitier. this one’s got deep fruit flavor, with a hint of that delicious red wine.

Chocolate Cabernet
everyone’s favorite by far. of all the wine and ice cream pairings man ever invented, chocolate and Cabernet has got to be the best. this version nails it!

Port
nearly blue in color, this had the potential to be super-sweet. but it wasn’t. would definitely see this served as a dessert with some port-soaked cherries.

Strawberry Sparkling
lightening things back up, this one was definitely perky. i would have it in a champagne float for sure. but that’s me.