The hue was a deep, warm reddish violet, almost a true purple, and although the valpolicella isn't a "thick" wine, it seemed to have a heaviness in the glass that made the color even deeper and richer. The bouquet was, to be honest, unattractive at the bottle's neck when I first opened it, but quite pleasant once the wine was in the glass. The bottle itself is a deep brown colored glass, and that makes it that much harder to appreciate the tint of this wine while it's still in the bottle, but ah, once it hits the glass! I enjoyed merely swirling it for several minutes, watching it wash the sides of my glass.
The flavor was a near-perfect mixture, for me, of tannin and fruit sweetness. There was no aftertaste; this is a wine of first impression and it leaves no hint of itself behind, which makes each sip that much more pleasant an experience because it's almost like rediscovering it anew.
Am I crowing? I guess so. The Della Torre deserves it. It also deserves the 97 I'm giving it.
Every so often a group of friends of mine gets together to do something on a weekend evening. In the first weekend of August, 1998, our date was for dinner and a play at the Alley Theater. The Alley is located in downtown Houston and, until recently, there have been precious few choices for nice, affordable dining in the downtown region. On this particular trip, however, one of my friends suggested we eat at Mingalone's, an Italian cafe only a block away from the Alley. My friends, being awfully trusting individuals, asked me to select the wine.
~Sigh~ Must restaurants charge more for wines than they do for their finest meals? Between taxes and this misguided belief that people who order wine like paying five or six times what the wine's worth, it's almost impossible to find an affordable wine at most restaurants nowadays. Almost. But not quite. Though I'm none too happy about the $32.00 price tag, the Barbaglia was an affordable find, given restaurant prices and the fact that three couples were sharing the bottle. And it was a right pleasant one, too.
The wine had a relatively weak bouquet, but on the other hand, it may simply be that my nose was overwhelmed by the myriad aromas drifting through Mingalone's. In any event, I detected no unpleasantness in the bouquet.
The first taste is tangy almost to the point of being sharp, but this isn't a negative point. There isn't any overt acidity or metallic bite to the first sip; the tang is a very nice blend of tannin and the aromatics that combine for this blend. The tang stays with one, also, through each glass, a tiny adventure in every sip.
The price puts me off, but beggars can't be choosers and, when one is determined to find a wine on the wine list that will cost less than the $100.00 price tag for dinner for twelve, it's very affordably priced. I'll give it a 70, with an upward reconsideration possible once I find out what its retail non-restaurant sales price is.
There isn't that much to get fired up about this wine. Neither is there anything to dislike, particularly, about it. The best thing about it is its appearance, a warm scarlet in an elegantly necked bottle. The bouquet is insufficient but what there is of it is pleasant enough. The same might be said of the taste. It's not untasty, but it leaves your mouth wishing there had been more to the encounter, so to speak.
I'll keep looking. There's bound to be an affordable, excellent beaujolais out there. I just haven't looked hard enough.
This cab was a pleasure! Dry, robust without being overpowering, with just the right blend of fruitiness and acidity. The tannin is noticeable, but not unpleasant; about what you'd expect in a cabernet. The aroma was a little weak, though. But, at the price for the quality, it's an excellent, excellent buy. I've had several Beaulieu vintages over the past couple of years, and I haven't been disappointed yet. This is a good wine for a meal, or for an afternoon of leisure. Give it a try. I rate it an 80.
Three years ago, I reviewed another Beaulieu wine, a nice 1993 cabernet. Red wines being what they are, I imagine most bottles of that cab are probably past their prime--though I'd force myself to try one if any of you were kind enough to contribute it to the reviewing effort!
No matter. This '96 merlot is even better than I remember that cabernet sauvignon as being.
The color was deep and rich; so deep and so rich, in fact, that I was prepared for a much heavier taste, almost the weight of a burgundy. The bouquet was light, however, the way a merlot should be, and just faintly reminiscent of fresh blooms. The first taste is wonderful, sweet but not cloying, smooth and undertoned and thus as nicely refined as one ordinarily would get from a more expensive wine.
I don't think I've ever had a bad Beaulieu, and I'm happy to recommend their wines on my site. I do have two gripes with the vintner, however. First, Beaulieu should stop with this silly practice of putting a wax seal above the cork. Yes, I know, it forms a gas barrier and supposedly keeps air out of the wine. But that's what the cork is for in the first place! I firmly believe the wax somehow dries out the cork; every bottle of wine I've ever opened that had that wax seal has had a cork that splits when I open it, no matter whether I use a screw or a spade cork puller.
And, please, stop with the trendy "let's make the label look like we accidentally tore off the lower third of it" look. It makes the bottle look unfinished.
This is the third Beaulieu I've reviewed in my World. The first, a cabernet, was quite nice. The next, which was the coastal merlot from the vintage preceding this one, was even better. In that review, I said, "I don't think I've ever had a bad Beaulieu, and I'm happy to recommend their wines on my site."
I still stand by that statement. Everything I said about the 1996 merlot applies to this very nice vin ordinaire, and I continue to keep Beaulieus in my wine cellar.
The price is better than the '96, too, though that may have been the result of buying at a more expensive wine merchant last year. But perhaps someone at BV is a visitor to Highlander's World; the wax seal and the silly "looks like we ripped off the bottom half" label are both gone. No wax seal, and a nice, elegantly understated label. Well done, chaps.
Symphony has the heart of a poet, the soul of a musician, and the taste of a cultured person. This wine was a gift to me (a birthday commemorative, if memory serves). It's a very, very good thing I count Symphony among the anchors in my life, for otherwise I never would have tried this wonderful wine (being, as you all know, too cheap to spend fifteen dollars and then some for a bottle of the grape ~G~).
1996 and 1997 were good years for wine just about everywhere in the world, it seems. In Italy, which hadn't really seen a good year since 1978. In Germany, even (though, to be honest, German whites leave me cold). In Australia. And in California, it would appear. This is an excellent example of just how good '96 was.
The Benziger's color is deep and rich, too dark to be classically "red" but too dark, too, to be called "purple." The bouquet is rich and full, with a cherry sweetness in its scent that, thankfully, does not come through too strongly in the flavor. The tannins are nicely high; there's a good "pucker-factor" to this wine without it being so seccid that you feel you need a drink of water after every sip.
Get some and try some. It may be a bit pricey, but it won't disappoint.
This was the premier red wine at my clan's 1999 Thanksgiving evening feast. I bought it for no better reason than that it was Australian (southeast coast, the only coast I've tried so far). There was method to my madness, my friends. Thus far, I've found Australian wines to fall into one of two categories: Nearly undrinkable, and nearly heavenly. And there have been only two samplings in the first category, one of which I really think was simply a bad bottle. Hence, I look forward to trying new Australian wines.
I'm happy to report that this was another second-category find. The Black Opal is slightly weaker in tannins than the Benziger, but it's every bit as rich and smooth otherwise. The fruitings and the casking come together very well in a lovely blend of berry undertones and wood-smoke overlay (or reverse them; it depends on whether you see the glass as half full, half empty, or twice as big as it should be ~G~).
At a little more than half the price of the Benziger, it's probably a better buy overall. Although there are some expensive Aussie wines--and they're hideously expensive--by and large I am finding that their "priced for real people" offerings give just as much value for their price as the better California wines.
I hosted a Saturday evening pot-luck dinner at my home. I was cooking fajitas, and my guests were bringing the other goodies. About an hour before show time, I realized I'd made no arrangements concerning beverages, so it was off to the store for Cokes and Diet Cokes and ice . . . and I realized I needed some wine. So I picked up a couple of bottles of things I want to try later, and then thought about a good journeyman wine for the gathering itself.
I've always liked Italian wines. I think they're moderately priced and quite good for that price. I'll stack a good Italian wine against the equivalent vintage from California or France any day of the week and the Italian will win--a match or better on flavor, and almost always better on price. I've had many kinds of Bolla wine before but never their merlot, and so this was a new experience.
It was very, very good. The color was wonderful--a deep but subdued purple with just the right reddish tint. This wine looked passionate in the glass! Its aroma was tantalizing. The merlot was dry but just so, very well balanced, with a rich, ripe black cherry tone and a wonderful silken smoke smoothing out the tannin. I wish I had another bottle of it.
Rate this one a 84 and enjoy it when you get the chance.
This is a dry Italian red wine. It has a good color, just slightly lighter than the juice of fresh black cherries, and a pleasant, bright bouquet. It's enjoyable to drink by itself or with a meal. One guest who tasted it with me called it "perky," but I think that's a bit to shee-shee a term. There's a pleasant mix of oak in the fruit flavor, and some bite from the acidity. The price is very good if you're looking for an everyday table wine. It's a diverse wine, too, equally suitable for poulty or light or medium beef. Stay away from it if you plan a meal of heavy beef, however--roasts, prime rib, etc. It doesn't have enough body to carry the meal. If you want an Italian red for such a meal, I recommend at least a bardolino, better still a barolo. A good general-purpose table wine, I think. Perhaps I sampled it young, but my experience with this Bolla has taught me that they don't carry their age too well. I give it a 73.
Well, I certainly took my time drinking this one! I mean, it was only ten years old when I received it, and I let it sit around for another year before I opened it. This was out of neglect rather than by design; somehow, this gift from my brother ended up in the wine rack and I never really noticed it until we moved into our new home and I was looking for something with which to toast the occasion. Along the way, the chianti survived one and a half falls onto marble floors (the wine rack disassembled itself one time and this veteran Chianti would have been a goner except that a nondescript cabernet sacrificed itself on the hard marble to save the other bottles; the other time, it slipped off the rack and did a double-gainer off a chair cushion before my daughter made a brilliant save), various moves around the kitchen as I replaced the wine rack and searched for a safer harbor for the soldiers, and being packed unceremoniously into a file storage box and hauled several miles to our new abode.
You would think that between the age and the mistreatment, the grape would have suffered some, wouldn't you? Of course you would, and it would be more than fair to think that.
Surprise!
There should be a special rating for wines for their "durability." This one came through wonderfully. It was a little more bitter than I would have liked, but after all, it was almost twelve years old, and that's a long time for a red. Still, it had a very pleasant heartiness and that semi-sweet tang so characteristic of chianti. And, no, it doesn't come in a frascati (for those of you who don't follow Italian bottling traditions, a frascati is the woven reedy thing that contours the bottom of many bottles of chianti--you know, the kinds of bottles that end up on red-and-white checkered tablecloths with centuries' worth of candle wax drippings coating them?); it comes in a "real" bottle.
I've always loved Italian wines; while a cabernet is my mainstay, my general-purpose wine, a really good bardolino or valpolicella is so wonderful, and nothing, nothing beats a sturdy barolo when you're having a meal that features a heavy beef, like a roast. And my absolute favorite white wine is Fontana Candida. This chianti upheld my bias splendidly. It was such a nice treat after spending the whole Thanksgiving weekend moving in.
I've replaced the 1985 with a 1993; look for a comparison review in the (not too distant) future. For now, I'll give the '85 an 85.
My love affair with wine began with Italian vintages. Back when I was in college (when Lincoln was President and dinosaurs roamed the Earth), California wines were either awful or utterly unaffordable. Hmm. I guess things haven't changed all that much with some West Coast vintners. Anyway, if you wanted a decent wine but couldn't afford high-end Napa Valley prices, you had a limited selection. French wines? Right. How many affordable French wines are there? German? Fine, if you want to limit your taste to rieslings and liebfraumilch. Greek? Well, at the tender age of 20 I hadn't yet discovered the joys of retsina.
At my brother's recommendation, I began sampling the Italian wines--and was, almost without exception, delighted. I still think that for price against quality, Italian reds simply cannot be topped.
I've been drinking Brolio wines as long as I've been drinking (no comments on the age of us social dinosaurs, thank you). I remember the first Brolio chianti I had. It was a 1978 wine--and if you recall, 1978 was a wonderful year for wines of all nationalities and blends. The Italians were no exception. 1985 wasn't too bad a year, either.
I'm happy to report that 1993 was just as good a year for this durable, subtly elegant table wine. The color is a deep, rich violet-red and uniform throughout. Even three days after being opened, and without the benefit of those fancy vacuum-pump recorkers, the bouquet is tangy and redolent, inspiring visions of sunny hills. Makes you want to go wandering the mountain pathways around Corleone with Michael.
The flavor was as smooth as any red I've ever tasted, and surprisingly so since many consider chianti a rough, "peasant" wine. Change "rough peasant" to "thoroughly pleasant," and you have this wine's nature in two words.
I have to warn you, though, that if you want this wine for Italian "atmosphere," you'll be disappointed. It does not come in a frascati, the straw base for the bottle. It's a wine bottle like any other. Sorry, no dripping candle wax on your checkered tablecloth. But, hey, it's a wine that more than earns a 90. What more do you want?
Bernardo (f/k/a Provost) recommended this wine. In fact, on his recommendation, I bought a case of it. And then, in time for my annual Christmas party, I bought another--without having tasted the first one!
It was an excellent buy. If they had another case--and I had any money left--I'd buy still another one.
Imagine everything you like in a cabernet. Imagine a deep, warm color and a bouquet that tantalizes your mind when it hits your olfactory nerves. Imagine a delicious blend of cherries and oak, with a dryness that's so finely balanced you don't really notice the tannins even as you enjoy them. Imagine the perfect cabernet sauvignon.
This is close. It's very close. If the price were a dollar or two less, it would be there, or as close as any mortal has a right to hope to achieve. I love this wine, and I'm very, very happy to recommend it. I'm putting it with Fontana Candida, my favorite Lindemans, and the Cardenal Mendoza as one of the staples of my wine cellar.
Many thanks, Bernardo. But for you, I might not have discovered this 95 that rates a 95.
The past few years, the family has gathered at my house for the major holiday dinners. Accordingly, I was shopping for wine for the Thanksgiving feast, and my eye fell upon the Buena Vista. Having sampled the Carneros cabernet and enjoyed it, I thought I would give this somewhat more elegant (and certainly more expensive) cousin a try.
I was not disappointed, except at the price--but then, nothing costs what it used to, does it? The tannins are lower than in the cab, giving the piñot noir less of a bite at the first taste. Neither is it sweet; there's a nice tone of spice, and just a hint of the casking, to effect a nice pucker on your taste buds.
The color is excellent, the bouquet a bit understated but not weak. If this wine didn't have a price tag almost twice that of the cabernet, I'd rate it even higher. As it is, if you're looking for a vin ordinaire that can stand the line with the even pricier table offerings, I gladly recommend this one.
This is the second Campo Viejo I've reviewed. In fact, this wine is two years older than the one I'd already sampled. Yes, this was another "trip to Tio Pepe" wine. ~Grinning~
I endorse everything I said about the Campo Viejo in my earlier review, plus a little more. In fact, I'm a little surprised that the '94 was superior to the '96, only because I'm finding more and more that most winekeepers don't cellar their wines properly and thus they can't get a five-year life out of their reds (I shudder to think of what their whites taste like after five years!).
Then again, I shouldn't be surprised by the fact that Tio Pepe's people know how to keep a wine. Carlos does one thing--run his restaurant--very, very well indeed.
The only negative aspect to this wine is its price. $34.00 is an awfully steep ticket to punch. But I reserve Tio Pepe for special occasions, and I do not mind paying a little more for a nice bottle of wine to make the evening more pleasant, for my companions and for myself. Thus, I do not reduce the ratings for price in this case.
I will, however, search out this wine at the wine merchant and provide an update on its availability and wholesale/retail price.
Meanwhile, dum vivimus, vivamus!
Move over, my friends the Marques riojas. There's a new kid on the block and he's bigger and better than you are. I made one of my perennial trips to Tio Pepe, a wonderful Spanish restaurant in the Houston, Texas area (actually, it's located in Bellaire, but insofar as Bellaire is an island surrounded by the sea of Houston . . . .), and this was the wine we drank.
I thought this was a wonderful wine. Heady but not headstrong, passionate but not ovecome with passion, stately without being stuffy, there just aren't enough comparisons available in English to describe this wine. It has a beautiful, regal color and a bouquet that hints at--but doesn't quite give away--the warm spiciness mingled in its body. That spiciness comes through from the first taste to the last, however, a near-perfect blend of sweetness, tannin, oak, and even a hint of pepper that mix so well together.
I'm going to see if this wine's available at my merchant's, and if so, for how much. If its store price isn't prohibitive, I'm going to make it a regular inhabitant of my cellar. From the sniff of the cork to that bittersweet moment when the last dregs drip from the spent bottle, it was a pleasure to sample this wine.
This month, I've found two vins ordinaires from France that have gone a long way toward changing my long-standing belief that French wines are unreasonably overpriced. The de Jau, in particular, was an extremely nice find.
The wine is a full, deep color, perfectly hued for a red. It looks like a warm smile in the glass, and it feels like a lover's kiss on the lips. The initial taste is rich but not overpoweringly so, and I detected no aftertaste. If I have any criticism of the de Jau, it's that it's a bit too sweet, but not so much so that I can honestly call it a "sweet" red. It's still plenty dry, just not quite dry enough to suit me.
But at less than ten dollars a bottle, and being this smooth for being in the bottle only three years, who's complaining? I'm glad I gave this little Gallic item some time, and as I have another bottle put away, I'm looking forward to another interlude soon.
I am not a fan of French wines, typically. I think they have awfully inflated prices for the quality of the wine purchased. That is not to say they are bad wines, just horribly overpriced. Many reviewers go ga-ga over anything with a Gallic label; in my opinion, they're suffering from the same problem as a lot of people who are into AKC dog shows and equestrian events: They're too wrapped up in the image, too detached from the real passion of the event. I say all this so that you'll understand, when I recommend a French wine, it's because by my middle-income standards it has set itself apart as something remarkable, and the Grande Chapelle 1990 certainly fits that appellation. If you've ever wondered what liquid silk is like, take a sip of this wine. Sadly, the price is somewhat prohibitive, but for a special occasion, I wouldn't let price alone knock it off my wine list. Rate it an 83, unadjusted for price; drop it 15 to 20 points for the hole it will make in your checkbook.
Now, this was an enjoyable wine. Last year, I reviewed its sister, the Merlot. Prices, unfortunately, have gone up, but I'm happy to report that the 1995 wines from Chateau Julien are maintaining good drinkability.
This wine poured nicely. Even in its fourth night of consumption, it had a pleasant hue as it came into the glass. It's not strong on bouquet, and if you like an olfactory delight this wine will not hold up to your expectations, but it has enough scent to carry a warm, inviting tone in the first sip.
And the first sip is quite smooth, much smoother than many cabs I've tasted. It warms the palate and it goes down the throat very nicely indeed.
Serve this one with poultry, grilled or broiled port, or a light beef and you can't go wrong. It can do double-duty, too, welcoming guests for an evening of social pleasantries. The price could be better, but then all wines could cost less if the taxes weren't so high. With an 88, this wine is worth having in your cellar.
The wine salesman I referred to earlier was at Spec's selling Chateau Julien products. In fact, he lured me over to his display with a sample of cabernet sauvignon that I'll be reviewing in a month or so. The cab had a very, very nice flavor, enough so that I bought a couple of bottles of it and, on impulse, two bottles of the merlot.
This is a very, very nice wine. Normally, I find merlots too light (my tastes are backward to many other wine drinkers; I find cabernets more robust than merlots), but this one is an exception. Yet it's extraordinarily smooth. The color is a deep, rich purple, like a grape juice that's been filtered through a heathered mist. It has a very appealing aroma, and it rolls so smoothly in the glass that it's easy to understand, from looking at it, what the Greeks meant when they enthused over "the wine-dark sea."
I'm drinking a glass of it as I write this review on Sunday afternoon, and even five days after being uncorked, and with no special storage equipment, it is still excellent. It has a very light edge to it that highlights rather than overpowers the rich, smooth fruit flavor, and just enough of a smoky aftertaste to make the sip linger on the palate and in the mind's archive.
The price is good, the character extraordinary, the total experience more than rewarding. Buy this wine, which I rate a 97, and you won't be sorry.
Five years proved too long for this red wine--which was a shame. A red should last five years. I stored this one with reasonable care; I didn't move it from pillar to post and I kept it in as good storage as any of my other wines (and better than some overages from Christmas parties past--I think there were six bottles of a forgettable white wine that never got opened one year, that sat in the garage after that . . . and that, come to think of it, might still be there today.
Well, the Julien didn't get such abuse, and still, it was far past its prime when I opened it. It wasn't vinegar--quite--but it was tart to the point that the word could have been used as a noun for it rather than an adjective.
I've had good Juliens before, and I'm sure I will again in the future. I am not putting C.J. on the "keep this away from all living things" list. But don't waste any money on the '95. Buy a newer one and sample that instead.
Monday, 13 April 1999: The day I did my 1998 income taxes. I began at 1900. I finished at 0400 the next morning.
It was not a pleasant experience. But the wine I had with dinner--and a little more while I was preparing my tax return--and a little more when I finished it--was very, very, good.
I've had a love-hate relationship with Clos du Bois wines over the years. When I first tried them, I loved them. Then, enough people started loving them that the winery began loving itself--and reflecting its love in upward-spiraling prices. In recent years, however, Clos du Bois has worked hard to produce a good series of moderately priced vins ordinaire. Unfortunately, the winery has also taken to producing vapid commercials that treat the customer like an idiot, but as I'm still savoring the memory of that first glass of this wonderful cabernet, I'll forgive even that.
The color is nearly perfect. The bouquet is fresh and a wonderful blend of spice and citrus. The tannins are strong yet nicely balanced with the sweetness of cherries and a very good undercurrent of the casking.
This was an excellent wine for the drudgery of tax time. Imagine how much more I would've liked it if I'd been sampling it on a more pleasant occasion. Then again, I have two more bottles . . . .
This was an excellent wine. Truly excellent. I have lots to say about it, but one of my closest friends has already done so, and there really is nothing I can add or detract. If you want to read a good review of this fine table wine, please check out Donald Burger's review of it. I give it a 94. Find it, buy it, enjoy it.
UPDATE: To my knowledge, this wine is no longer available in any vintage. There was a 1995 cabernet sauvignon; it was not as good as the 1994, but it was serviceable. Sometime in late 1995 or 1996, it appears, Coast Ridge Cellars stopped producing this wine. The 1996 offering was simply called "American Wine." It was not good. I have seen subsequent issues of this wine as a "vintage" wine (i.e., "1997 American Wine" and "1998 American Wine") but I decline to try them.
~Highlander~
"Ohhhhhh! You oeno-Philistine! You're actually drinking a wine that's only THREE YEARS OLD?????" You betcha. And if you don't want to drink yours, send it over to my table. I'll drink it for you--and laugh at you as you miss a great experience.
There aren't enough nice things to say about this wine. It had the perfect--I mean it, the perfect--blend of fruitiness and tannin. Its color was wonderful, and its texture just heavy enough to coat the sides of the glass evenly and then just as evenly slip back into the pool when you swirl it. Its aroma is redolent with an attractive blend of earthiness, fruit, and spice. I loved this wine. In fact, I'm going to go out and look for some of this when I do my shopping today. I heartily recommend this find, and I enthusiastically give it a 93.
Although I've never visited Spain--yet--I do enjoy several of their red wines, in particular the riojas. I've found them wonderful wines, versatile enough to serve with all but the heaviest beef and also light enough for afternoon or evening sipping without a meal. My favorite for many years has been Marques de Caceres. So, it was with a mixture of skepticism and optimism that I purchased the Valdemar on a wine salesman's recommendation that it was less expensive than the Caceres, and "just as good, maybe better." Skepticism, because I found it nigh unbelievable that any rioja could compete with, let alone surpass, the superb Caceres. Optimism, because at a little more than half the price of a Caceres, if the Valdemar held up to his assurances I was onto a find indeed!
Let me point out here that the wine salesman was not a salesman for Valdemar. That said, I must also tell you that we were each half right. Valdemar is only about half the price of the Marques de Caceres. It is not "just as good" as my favorite; it doesn't come close.
In fairness, I need to point out that the Valdemar is a good wine. In fact, it's very good. It's closer to a merlot than the Caceres, but with a much higher tannin content. Under any other circumstances, I'd rate this wine as truly excellent. The only reason I cannot--and it's an important reason to me--is that it doesn't match the Caceres, either in smoothness or in overall flavor.
The tannin content is up there with the driest of cabernets, and it's high enough to overpower the sweetness in the wine's blossom. The result is that the wine seems heavier than it really is; too heavy, I think, to serve with seafood or chicken, though it might handle a roasted turkey and could certainly sit with pork and most beefs. Since I'm a firm believer in the idea that there is no "right" or "wrong" wine to serve with any food (I've even heard of serving port with a particular cut and preparation of steak, and I'm looking forward to reporting my experience on this soon), you may conclude, correctly, that this wine lacks the versatility of the Caceres.
It lacks the gentle friendliness of its namesake, too. I would serve this wine with a meal, but I wouldn't entrust either before-dinner or non-meal-related drinking to it. It's bite is too strong; it would need some light snack to temper its effect on the palate.
Still, I rate it a solid 83, and I do recommend it if you have the right meal in mind. Its price is acceptable, and its color, bouquet, and flavor overall are acceptable. They just aren't the Caceres.
On 2 September 1939, my parents married. To mark their sixtieth anniversary, Mozart and I held a party in their honor. We were expecting some thirty to thirty-five people. Mozart paid for the caterer, and my task, which I readily accepted, was to provide the liquid refreshments.
So, Bernardo and I set out for the wine merchant. Our goal was to buy several inexpensive wines, some red, some white, in the hope that I might find one or two worth purchasing in larger quantities.
This wine won't be coming here in strength anytime soon.
I'm not a fan of Corbett Canyon. I haven't found anything in its offerings to commend it except the price, and in the case of this winery, the bargain label doesn't make up for the incredible lack of clarity and dimension in the wine itself. This cabernet sauvignon is no exception. The color is too purple; it looks like one has filled his glass with Minute Maid®. The taste is too fruit-punch fruity; the wine lacks both the spark of berry and the spice of fine oak or even not-so-fine charcoal. The tannins are asthmatic.
Still, believe it or not, I'm not knocking this wine. You should try a glass to know what vin ordinaire really means.
I came to sample this wine unexpectedly. My good friend Wiseman came to my house, distraught over a family tragedy, and we decided to have a glass or two of wine while we talked. Quite accidentally, I pulled this Tuscan wine from the rack instead of the one I had planned to open--it proved to be an excellent mistake!
Tuscan wines can seem harsh, but this one was smooth and pleasant to the eye, the nose, and the palate. The deep purple-red liquid swirls smoothly, but not sluggishly, in the glass, and the bouquet is at once savory and mildly fruity, a wonderful blend of citrus, flowers, and spice. The first sip is warm and just a little taunting; the tannins just high enough to spark the tongue without overpowering the fruitiness and turning the Toscana into a heavy version of cabernet.
I have never tried a Crognolo before--but I will be looking for it in the future, and I happily suggest you do the same!
I drank a glass of this cab at a friend's house. He had opened it a few days before, then recorked it securely. Even after four or five days, it was quite good. The tannin was just right, giving it a good dry quality. This wine was smooth, very smooth. Coming after last month's disappointing chardonnay, it quickly repaired my sinking opinion of Cuvaison. I'm giving it an 88.
In 1996, I reviewed this wine's older brother. It wasn't a very favorable review. To be honest, if I'd remembered the 1993 Cypress when I went to the wine merchant, I would've passed on this purchase.
Every now and then, though, my forgetfulness works to my advantage. This was one of those times. This wine was a very pleasant improvement over the 1993 cabernet offered by Lohr.
Opening the bottle was a bit of a challenge. The days of lead-tin wrappers over the corks are long gone, and that's a pity, because the environmentally sensitive (or maybe just plain less expensive) alternatives the wine makers have come up with are neither as good at sealing the cork nor as easy to remove. In the Cypress' case the cover seemed to be a merger of almost styrene plastic and a thin, aluminumized material. It was resistant even to a sharp knife and refused to peel off in any large sections. Be prepared to spend five minutes just getting the bottle open.
Once that frustration was out of the way, however, the experience improved markedly. The cab had a nice deep red hue and a scent that was pleasant though it fell short of being outstanding. The taste was smooth and slightly drier than I find typical in a cabernet, but it bore a rich citric tang and a nicely wood-smoked undertone (which was the one truly positive feature of the 1993 cabernet). And with a little addition to Constanzo's domain, this wine lasted nicely for four days after being opened.
I'm happy to give this wine a 79, a much higher rating than its predecessor earned.
If wines were songs, this one would be a Steppenwolf tune, performed by Tony Bennett. And by inverting but one letter, turning a W into a M, you get the title: Born to be Mild.
For a wine that resides at the high end of affordable, this was something of a disappointment. The wine fairly whispers, "Ennui." From the blandness of the bouquet to the uninspired flavor, this is a mediocre wine, from the center out in all directions. Note, it isn't a bad wine; if your choice is between this and something with a screw top, get out your corkscrew. Just don't expect very much from the offering.
Ah, well, you live, you learn. Kiss enough frogs, sooner or later you find a prince. This just wasn't the one.
Diablo Creek Vineyards California Merlot 2000
The label of this wine remarks that it has "soft, enticing black currant, cherry and plum flavors." I wouldn't know about the particular fruit statements; perhaps my palate is uncouth, or maybe I'm just too much of an ol' Texas clod to understand all that high-falutin' wine talk. I don't differentiate specific fruits in wines, and honestly, I've never understood that part. Wine comes from grapes. That's what wines taste like.
And, must disagree about the "soft" part. I found this merlot a bit raw, just on the easy side of "harsh." It wasn't unpleasantly so, but it seemed to have too high a tannin level, something more in keeping with a cabernet than a merlot.
Still, it was by no means a bad wine. In fact, it was quite serviceable in its own right. The price is attractive, the wine has a deep, rich purple color (perhaps a tad too purple, now that I think about it), and while the immediate effect was, as I said, a touch raw, it did good service with a dinner of ham - and - Swiss casserole, a nice tossed salad, and homemade rolls. Would I try it again? More likely than not. I'll just brace myself for a slightly rougher ride than I've come to know with the Merlot Express.
I bought this wine with great misgivings. In my experience, French wine is greatly overrated and hideously overpriced. By "greatly overrated," I mean that the quality does not merit the hefty cashier's bill. So, when I saw a French wine for under $25.00 a bottle, I faced a dilemma. On the one hand, the price was very attractive. On the other, given my suspicions, I expected it to taste like rather expensive salad topping. Attractiveness won out.
It was a good choice. Now, let me state up front that the label makes it clear that this is a table wine. It does not pretend to be a great vintage. But simply because something is not Chateau Duc de Daffy Eighteeen-Ought-Three is no reason to turn up one's nose at a fragrant, flavorful wine, and this Saint-Chinian certainly is.
It's a deep wine color, much prettier than I expected it to be. Of a bouquet, well, there isn't much, but what slim aroma there is is not unpleasant. I didn't really get the chance to see its legs; we were having this wine with some comfortable conversation with friends after dinner and I was paying more attention to the talk than to the glass.
Ah, but the flavor! There's a deep tone of berries and spice, with a fairly full thread of oak complementing it. Yet the taste is light. This wine seems quite low in tannins, however it is not overly sweet. If you like a blend between a sweet and dry red wine, this might be one worth considering.
I'm awarding this wine a 75 and giving it another try the next time I go to the wine merchant's. For a light meal or as a party wine (if you're fool enough to serve red wine to groups of people, some of whom are unlucky or determined enough to spill it where it will stain!), then you should put this Saint-Chinian on your list.
I have long maintained that French wines are hideously overpriced. I believe the French wine merchants unreasonably impose a premium on us, simply because of the supposedly "extraordinary" quality of a French wine. I've never really understood this. After all, the French didn't invent wine. And in this age, they certainly don't have a monopoly on good ones. Their egregious overpricing, therefore, really jabs a nerve with me.
So, when I saw a vintage wine from la belle France selling for such a ridiculously low price, I had to take a chance. I shelled out the $2.99 and got myself a bottle of the Côtes du Ventoux.
I am happy to report that my earlier opinion remains unaltered. French wines are hideously overpriced.
Especially this stuff.
Let's start with the label. It's a slick little thing, looks like someone cut a piece of a magazine page out and glued it on the bottle. Before they did that, though, they ran it through a dot-matrix printer so it could have some cheesy marketing information pattered at the top. I have news for the Grand Crew Importing Compnay of Houston, Texas: If this is the best they have to offer, they should be ashamed to put their name anywhere near it.
The color was so-so. There was no bouquet. None whatever. That surprised me, but only momentarily. You see, there's no flavor to this wine, either. Now, maybe the Côtes du Ventoux grows unbelievably mild grapes . . . or maybe they made this wine with tap water and Red Dye Number 2. Either way, the result was the same: No taste at all.
I refuse even to rate this dreck. It doesn't deserve a number. And neither does the price tag. If you were to receive this miserable excuse for a table wine as a gift, you'd still be losing money.
This was the second of two reds we tried at my brother's birthday party for 1998. Compared to the Monterey cabernet we tried on this same evening, this one comes up short.
Way short. As in stunted. Dwarvish. Sadly diminutive.
The color is too dark; this wine looks like something between a second-rate chianti and a burgundy, with far too much of the violet in its hue. The bouquet is too challenging. This wine doesn't greet your olfactory nerve; it screams, "Oh, BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABY!" shoulders its way through the crowd, does a running-start broad jump around the nerve, and ravishes it right there at the rim of the glass.
As for the taste . . . well, I've never tasted quite the flavor this wine produces. I can't call it an aftertaste, because it was the first thing I sensed. And I can't call it an undertone, because it stands--nay, charges way out front from the get-go. Hmm. How do I describe this unusual taste that hits one before the wine flavor arrives?
A mugging. Yes, that's a pretty good definition.
Now, describing the taste itself is very difficult, because I've honestly never tasted this before. It wasn't exactly metallic, and it wasn't quite woodsy. It was more like, well, almost petrochemical in nature. Sort of like the wine had come not from a green glass bottle but from a plastic canteen via a length of PVC.
Save the almost nine dollars unless you really want to experience the vineyard's equivalent of a gang rape. I give it a 30. Maybe I'd rate it higher if it had kissed me after it . . . well, you know.
George Dubeouf Beaujolais Nouveau 2002
I know, I know . . . I can hear it now . . . "It was less than a year old?" Well, yes, it was.
And it was delicious, too.
I bought this beaujolais purely on a whim. I was at my wine merchant, and the brightly colored label caught my eye. I was surprised to find a Dubeouf for under twenty dollars, so I thought, "Why not?" I hadn't planned to drink it until much later in this year, but Groundhog Day is my father's birthday. This year (2003), he is 86 years old, and we had a fairly large family get-together to celebrate the occasion. Well, the combination of the festivities and needing a bit more wine for same, and the brightly colored label, all worked to ensure that the beaujolais got an early opening.
If there is one word to describe this wine, it is smooth. If you would like another to go with that one, try richly fruity. Oh, wait, that's two words. Well, they're all true. The taste is rich, but in a warm and gentle way, not an overpowering one. And the sensation going down the throat is like liquid silk.
At nearly thirteen dollars a bottle, it's a bit more than I typically spend for table wines, but hey, once upon a time you could get three bottles of decent table wine for that amount. Those days are gone. For the richness and delightful experience of this wine, I'd gladly pay more. I am very happy to recommend this wine, and I hope you will enjoy it fully.
When I was purchasing wine for a social gathering recently, I came across the Estancia at my local grocer's. Perhaps it was the Spanish-style name, or maybe I was simply in a mood to explore. More than likely, it was the low price tag. Whatever the reason, I picked up a bottle of this cabernet and gave it a try.
It was a very pleasant experience. Estancia isn't going to be a great wine, but given the price and the acceptable quality, it has the potential to be a really good, useful wine either as your table vin ordinaire or for informal social gatherings. The wine has a deep reddish hue that mutes the purple of the grape, and a bouruet that is slightly tart but not so much so as to be offensive. There is a sharpness of tannin in its foretaste, but also a rich brightness suggestive of citrus without being so citric as to make you wonder if you somehow managed to uncork a bottle of sangria. Overall this wine works well and, if the price holds stable, I'm going to add it as a regular to my cellar. I give it a 84.
I learned an important lesson with this wine: Never, never buy a wine that's named for a rock!
This wine was an unmitigated disaster. Where shall I start? With the label. It's attractive. It has a nice drawing of a winery on it. It has a pretty crest. And it has a nice name. "Fall Creek." That looks and sounds nice.
That's about it.
I should've been suspicious of a wine that didn't have any grape names on it. "Granite reserve"? That should've sent up a few warning flags. Oh, well, what can I say? I was lured by the label.
The opening was unspectacular. I put my nose to the cork--and smelled nothing. Not even cork. Ditto when I poured the first sample. A wine without a bouquet? I've had wines with wonderful scents, and one--a Charles Krug--with a very surprising aroma. It smelled like old damp stones, but it tasted wonderful. This "granite reserve" didn't have any scent at all! Well, what did I expect? Granite isn't a very smell rock, after all.
The color was a deep purple. Almost as purple as the pure purple on the label. Looked like grape juice. Maybe it even had grape juice in it. Or, maybe they were using a very dark form of granite.
We won't go into the question of flavor. It didn't have one. Other than tannin. If you like tannin--if you like your lips pursing up beyond what a dozen raw lemons could do--then you'll love this wine.
You know, granite is a funny stone. Formed just right, cut from just the right quarry, sanded and polished just so, it's marble, an enduring and lovely stone. Take away those elements, and granite is just granite. Good for enduring but not especially pretty government structures.
Hmm. Maybe "granite reserve" is a good name for this stuff, after all. My first, and a deservedly well-earned, rating of 0.00000000 for the year.
I'm told by people who consider themselves conoisseurs that Far Niente is a great wine. The sad part here is, these are people whose opinions I value. I know them to be honest friends; therefore, I will ascribe this terribly regrettable lapse on their part to plain old poor luck. This was a terrible wine. The best thing about it was its label--and that was fairly pretentious, now that I look at it again.
It had an acrid, most unpleasant aroma. The bouquet was redolent with a sharp, acidic, earthy smell. not the earthiness you expect with a well-kept red, but an odor vaguely reminiscent of, well, battery acid.
Are you getting the picture?
And the flavor . . . well, "sharp" is a too-kind term. The tannin was far too high even for a cabernet (and given that I like cabernets, you should conclude correctly that I like tannins), so high that the wine had a most unfavorable bite. For a "great" wine, it was too much of a let-down.
Sorry, my friend. I know you meant well, but this junk gets a 13.
I have enjoyed Italian wines for a long time. In my overall experience, they are the best buy you can make if you're going to spend money on a foreign wine. They have far better flavor, I think, than German wines, are equal in taste to French vintages (and infinitely superior to them in price!), and . . . well, we aren't even going to discuss the fine wines of Albania. I think Italian wines, particularly good reds, more than hold their own against other foreign wines, and even against the better California selections. You can hardly ever go wrong with an Italian wine in striking a balance between what your palate craves and what your wallet can stomach.
This Folonari was another example of that experience. It had a deep color, a little darker than you usually find in a cabernet, and a very pleasant aroma. Rather too much tannin; its bite was almost bitter, but not strong enough to be unpleasant. I wouldn't serve this as my wine of choice the night the District Supervisor comes to dinner; I'd go for a cabernet with slightly better manners. Still, for an evening with friends, or just for the two of you, it's a pretty good choice at an excellent price.
For a long time I've maintained that Italian wines are among the best bargains there are. The United States government has eroded that fact somewhat in the last few years as the Clinton bunch has decided to make us all "healthy" (never mind the incontestable body of medical evidence about the beneficial effects of moderate wine consumption), but even in this age of "What can the government tax now?" there are bargains out there, and really good ones if you know where to look.
Look for this bargain. It's excellent.
This wine is an experience. Its bouquet is lush; that's the only word that fits. The flavor is unique among merlots, much sweeter than I've come to expect, and yet, not so sweet that it lost its tang. If you're looking for a mild red that isn't too dry, give this one serious consideration. The price is almost impossible to beat, and both the dry and non-dry drinkers will appreciate it.
This wine was a pleasant surprise among the "bargain basement" selections I made preparatory for my parents' sixtieth anniversary party. So pleasant a surprise, in fact, that between the time I tasted it and when I began writing this review the following afternoon, I've raised its rating three times.
I'll be frank, on initial appearance the wine is unremarkable. It lacks a bit in color, leaning more toward the violet shade of purple than the deeper reddish tones of wine-purple. The bouquet is fairly weak, and that's usually a put-off for me, since the olfactory experience should be a fine complement to the tasting itself. However, what the wine lacks in sight and smell it makes up for, mostly, in taste. There's a nice smoothness to the initial sip, and the balance of berries and citrus is fairly well-accomplished. The tannin balance is surprisingly good; the wine is dry without being downright seccid, and tart without being either sour or bitter.
The price is a big plus to this wine. I plan to purchase several more bottles for casual table wine purposes, and I'm happy to suggest that you do the same.
I don't know if the Gallo family is opening new wineries, buying up smaller ones, or simply printing a variety of labels. However, it seems that every time I go to the wine store (which you can visit, too, online, by the way, right here) I find a "new" winery that turns out to be E & J's latest endeavor. Copperidge is this month's revelation.
I admit to having a fondness for Gallo wines. When I was in law school, Gallo and a nightmarish Algerian red were all I could afford (and the Algerians often won out, coming three bottles for $7.00 and three for $4.00 when on sale). In my younger years (yes, Virginia, Highlander was young, once upon a time) I spent many pleasant late-night hours at the kitchen table with Mozart and his friends, discussing the joys of classical music and generally curing the world of its problems, helped in both enterprises by Ernest and Julio.
Honestly, Copperidge will never be a great wine. Overall, I think Turning Leaf is a superior product, even though Turning Leaf tends to post a higher price. The Gallo Sonoma collection is sturdier, too. But this is a more than decent wine if you want something inexpensive (well, affordable; what ever happened to $2.00 wine?) that won't scour (or sour) your palate. Copperidge might look and taste run of the mill--and it does--but run-of-the-mill isn't necessarily a bad thing. There are many people out there who aren't really sophisticated wine drinkers, but they deserve something better than wines that come in six-packs with screw-tops. Or, far worse, wines that come in boxes and plastic bags.
If you want a nice, fairly smooth, slightly rustic wine, then I recommend this one. It should serve well on a day or evening when you want the taste of the grape but without raiding your more expensive bottles.
This was one of the wines that got me through law school. Not that I attended classes drunk or anything; all I mean is that when I was in law school, inexpensive wines and -- well, I'm too much of a gentleman to go into that -- were the only forms of entertainment I could afford. Back then (when Lincoln was President and dinosaurs roamed the earth), $6.00 would purchase about a half a gallon of Ernest and Julio's handiwork.
Times have changed, $6.00 doesn't go nearly as far as it did almost twenty years ago (a standard bottle, not a half gallon), and greyhounds, cats, and the normal detritus of happy, active daughter and granddaughter leave precious little space for those big, thick green glass bottles of yesterday. But we were having a roast for dinner and on an impulse I pulled this golden oldie out of the wine cellar. I was not disappointed. For a very informal dinner (just us, plus our oldest daughter and her husband) and plain but tasty fair, this was a good wine for the evening. The burgundy is hearty, not as robust as a barolo, but then, it wasn't that heavy a roast, either. And, the burgundy wasn't stout. There was a smoothness to it that I've missed in burgundies costing considerably more, yet it held its flavor well throughout the meal.
Some people sneer at E & J's wines; they view them as, well, I don't know, gauche or something. Uncultured, perhaps? They're too snobbish--about wines and probably about a lot more besides. This was a good, serviceable wine, and it made a pleasant evening more pleasant. All the more so because it didn't break the bank account to have it on the table. But I do miss those big, thick green glass bottles . . . . I rate it a 70.
Overall, I rate it a 62.
This was a Christmas present from DeeDee. I always enjoy inviting DeeDee and her husband Mike to my Christmas party. Mike is (quite literally) a mountain of a man and he always greets me with a firm clasping of our wrists and a deep, barrel-chested, "Highlander!" Plus, he brings goodies. His goodie this past Christmas was a bottle of The Macallan 12-year-old single malt. I'll be sampling this fine whisky soon and I'll report on that when The Spirit Chamber opens in Highlander's World sometime in the spring of this year.
But for now, DeeDee's gracious present. This is a wonderful wine. My poor command of words cannot begin to tell you about it, so I will let the vintner's back label do it for me:
"This wine shows exceptional elegance and finesse. Ripe, velvety flavors of black cherries and currants are accented by rich, creamy oak. The finish is long and full with hints of cedar and spice."
I declare every word of that to be true. Pick up a bottle. Pick up several. You will want to enjoy this excellent cabernet again and again.
Hmm. Wine from a quarry? Well, it might work. I'd never heard of this wine before, so I picked up a bottle of this to sample. I had no preconceptions, and the label didn't impart any information that would have helped to form one.
So, here's my first impression. This is a decent, but uneventful, wine. Everything about it conveys the impression, "Workhorse." Now, I don't mean that as a criticism. Workhorses are necessary. They just aren't very exciting. And so it was with Glass Mountain.
The color is acceptable, neither especially rich nor particularly dull in the glass. If there's no inner fire that flickers invitingly, neither does the wine just lay there coloring the glass. It has a nice aroma, with a fairly rich tinge of berry. However, the berry comes through in the flavor a little too strongly for my taste. And the Glass Mountain is weak in tannin . . . or maybe it just uses weak tannins. Either way, the wine strikes me as a bit too sweet for a cabernet. In terms of sweetness, it's almost a blend of a light-end merlot with a weak cabernet.
Still, it's a serviceable wine. If its bite is weak, well, there are many who enjoy the sweeter white wines that may like this as a darker-hued alternative. And it's affordable, always a useful trait for a wine to have. Way below the Buena Vista on my book, the Glass Mountain is still useful for quite casual occasions. Just don't use it as the piece de resistance on that vital, "This-is-the-dinner-that-nails-me-my-promotion" occasion. You're apt to be a little disappointed.
The really good thing about having intelligent, insightful friends is that I can almost always trust their evaluations of things. The really frustrating thing about having such friends is that, when they're wrong, they're really wrong. Such was the case with this cab--and though I'm sorry my friend was wrong, I'm glad I found out about it.
He'd been giving me impressions of Glen Ellen wines that were uniformly poor--well, awful, really. To listen to him, Glen Ellen never had bottled a decent sampling and never would. And his views are right on the mark far more often than not. So, it was with some mild concern that I eyed my wife's wine purchase last Saturday. Sunday night, we opened the bottle and served it with homemade beef stew.
It was excellent. Absolutely excellent. The wine, that is. The stew was quite tasty, too. The color was deep and rich, nearly that of a burgundy. The bouquet is extremely pleasant, and somewhat surprising, because it's much fruitier than the wine itself. And the taste was extraordinary, from the first glass to the last dregs. There's a faint spiciness in the aftertaste that I found especially charming.
The color's right, the taste's right, and the price is right. This is an excellent wine. Sorry, my good friend, but at least on this vintage, you're dead wrong about Glen Ellen. I'm very happy to award this delicious wine a 92.
I picked this wine up on a whim, and contrary to one of my established beliefs, which is that a wine label that is too "pretty" usually masks a wine that isn't.
This time, I was wrong.
I haven't had many Italian cabernets, and the few I've tried before now typically haven't even deserved a review. The Gossamer Bay was quite drinkable, however. The back label mentions that it has a "well-balanced structure" with "a hint of spice and a subtle floral note." I think that's an excellent description. I couldn't do better.
So, I'll just add this. Buy some, try some, put some away. At less than $5.00 a bottle, this is a great wine for casual evenings and anything less than the most formal affairs.
Occasionally, in reviewing wines, I find certain profound truths that we may reduce to maxims. Here's one for you now:
Never buy a wine whose name is an address.
This cab was a bitter disappointment. The color was too purple, and could've passed for indigo with just a little more work. It had the worst legs I've seen in a cab in a long time; the liquid was almost sluggish in the glass, so much so that when I took my first sip I was expecting the grit of sediment even from a property stored, freshly opened bottle.
I wasn't that lucky. I don't know exactly what went wrong with this wine. The bite that mugged my taste buds when the liquid first passed into my mouth cannot be attributed solely to tannins, although this wine's tannin level was pretty high. No, it was something else. Perhaps bad casking; maybe they put this wine in aluminum vats, having confused it for some kind of dark red beer.
Or maybe it was just battery acid. Just a touch. For character. But I'd have foregone this character any day.
Pass this one by in your store, unless you want to experience a wine that has earned every point of its rating of 5. Oh, and remember that maxim, too.
The label on the bottle proclaims that this wine is "full of berries and cherries and replete with hints of spice, chocolate, and vanilla." I found that statement to be half accurate. This red blend is full of berries, and it does have hints of spice. There was a certain behind-the-scenes sweetness that I'm willing to attribute to cherries, too. But chocolate and vanilla? Not unless the person who wrote up the label's blurb drank a lot more of this wine than I did!
So, of 5 listed categories, two and a half were true. Which doesn't mean that I'm slamming this wine. Quite the contrary; it was a most pleasant accoutrement for the dinner party we had last night (and our thanks and affection to Corbin and Sherri, and Donald and Maria, for making the evening so pleasant and special). I had a glass and a half before dinner (cook's prerogative, you know), and another glass or two with dinner, and the taste remained pleasant throughout.
The weak points? It's a little pricey (that $8.46 a bottle was a wholesale
price), there's very little bouquet, and the color, while acceptable, isn't anything to
pique one's ardor. And I have my doubts about another representation on the label, that
one should serve this wine "with roasted meats, steaks, traditional pasta and rich
cheeses or dishes flavored with rosemary or tarragon." I'll grant them the pasta
(although wondering privately what a "traditional" pasta is) and cheese dishes,
and even the steaks. The "rosemary and tarragon" business seems a little
pretentious to me; how many of you choose your wine particularly by the herbs that may or
may not be in what you prepare? But it's the "roasted meats" that I really
question. We had this wine with baked pork chops and rice, fresh green beans, a fresh
salad, and dinner rolls, and it worked excellently.
With a heavy roast, even a large pork roast, or even prime rib, though, I think the Guenoc
would come up lacking.
For flavor and general epicurean pleasure, I rate it an 84. If I adjusted the rating for pretentious labeling, Guenoc would lose 25 points.
Sadly, the older I get, the higher my price ceiling becomes on what constitutes the "perfect" vin ordinaire. It isn't that I have more money to spend, or that I like to spend more money; it's the simple mathematics of taxation. The more the government wants our money, and the more of our money it wants, the more wines cost.
That's why I was happy to find this very workable cabernet at my wine merchant not too long ago. Oh, this was by no means the ne plus ultra of cabernets, but it was a good journeyman wine, with a pleasant appearance, a bouquet that wasn't too tangy, and a very suitable mix of tannin and citrus. And it was less than ten dollars a bottle!
This one won't send you into paroxysms of delight. It isn't better than sex. It may or may not be as good as chocolate; I try not to be that judgmental in my wine reviews. But if you are on a budget and you want a pleasant red to go with a pleasant afternoon or evening, then I'm happy to recommend the Indigo Hills.
La Madeleine Merlot Vin de Pays d'Oc Val D'Orbieu 2001
When was the last time you had a really good house wine at a restaurant--and one that was affordable even by the bottle? Well, if you've been searching for such a creature, your search is over. Mosey on over to the nearest La Madeleine and try their house merlot.
One afternoon, my brother and I were out for lunch. We decided to eat at La Madeleine principally because (1) it was potato soup day there (they have great potato soup) and (2) we wanted wine with lunch. Well, we wanted more than a glass. Surprise! Not only could we purchase a bottle of wine for the table, but it was more than adequate--it was downright excellent! And at $11.00 a bottle, too!
This is a very nice merlot. It has a smooth foretaste, and no heavy aftertaste, with a subtle richness that was pleasing both at the time and in the aftertaste. The richness of the wine comes across as only a hint heavier than a cabernet. And you cannot beat the price, especially in these days, when "affordable" in a vin ordinaire has gone from $7.00 to $20.00 or more before you factor in restaurant markup.
If you're eating out and looking for a lunchtime--or dinnertime--wine to enhance a nice, moderately priced meal out, give this chain a try--and try the merlot! I guarantee you won't be disappointed.
This was the most expensive of the three wines I selected. Right now, I'd say I'm two for two--two good wines at affordable prices (although, at almost $8 a bottle, the Beaujolais is at the high end of "moderately priced").
This is a great wine to share with a special lady. It has a wonderfully full bouquet, yet a very light, delicate taste. Imagine a fair-to-middling Cabernet poured through silk, and you have the feel of this wine going down your throat. I can't really think of a meal it would run well with (although we had it with broiled chicken and it handled that nicely), but as a sipping wine for a romantic evening in front of the fireplace, this one is well worth the effort.
I'm giving it a 70 (too pricey to be rated above the Zinfandel). Pick up a bottle and see what I mean. In front of the fireplace.
Well, my experiment in finding reasonably priced wines (i.e., under $8.00 a bottle) paid off well. I am now three for three (the other two already having been reviewed)!
This merlot is an exceptionally nice, light red wine. It is semi-sweet, and to a dedicated cabernet worshipper like me, the first sip is almost reminiscent of a dessert wine. But, this little gem is far too smooth and light to fall into the dessert category.
I can't think of enough nice things to say about this wine. It has a deep purple-red hue that flares more to a crimson tone when it catches the light, it possesses a bouquet that is at once extremely delicate and yet most pleasant, so that a whiff of this vintage is very much like drawing out an old and fond memory of a lover's kiss. There is almost no aftertaste, but what residual flavor there is hangs at the back of the tongue and makes you want to take yet another sip.
With such a pleasant flavor and at under $7.00 a bottle, this French wine was an exceptionally pleasant surprise. I'm going to get more of this beauty; age can only make it even more enjoyable. I give it an 88, and most happily.
I readily admit to a fondness for Italian wines. Overall, I think they're superior to California's offerings in every category, and at every price level. I used to believe they were far superior, especially as to price; for less than $10.00, one could enjoy an Italian wine of equal or better character than what a well-known Napa vintner would get $30.00 for.
Alas, the price differential has changed. Thanks to the Little Rock Bunch and their arrogant determination to make us do what's "best" for us (evidently, they either have not read, or do not care, about the growing body of medical evidence that a glass or two of wine is good for one), and to eke out a few more dollars of our money to continue funding the failed social programs of the 1960s, all wines cost too much today. But the Italian wines still deserve great praise for their superlative quality.
This one is an excellent example of just how good an Italian wine can be.
The "real" connoisseurs out there will probably disagree, but I think of a barbera as similar to a cabernet. It's a heavier wine than a cab, but only slightly so, and not nearly as heavy as a bordeaux or, God forbid, a burgundy. This was an excellent table wine. The color was just right, a wonderful blend of red, violet, and russet. The bouquet was a pleasant mix of citrus and smoke, and on the palate the L'Avvocata delivered an excellent mixture of dryness and yet--well, more than a hint, less than a fullness . . . a promise?--of sweetness that reminds one of the perfect beginning kiss.
I'm going to survey my wine merchant and see what this gem's price is, but whatever it may be, I'm happy to comment this wine to you. It's perfect with a meal or simply as a companion for a drink in the evening.
My wine savoring began with Italian reds. My brother introduced me to them in the 1970s and I've remained fond of them ever since. Overall, I find them the best of the affordable European reds and usually able to compete with California's finest in flavor--and compete and win in price.
I hadn't heard of Librandi nor sampled their wares before this wine, so I was proceeding largely on the collective favorable memory. Once again, I was not disappointed.
The Librandi has a lovely color, a deep red with just the right blush of purple. The bouquet isn't anything to write home about, but then, it isn't unappealing, either. It's just a little weak. The legs look a little thin. But the taste! Clearly, this wine wasn't robust and I wasn't expecting a sturdy flavor, but I wasn't displeased at all with the richness that is in the bottle. There's a lovely berries/smoke mixture and just the right hint of wood seasoning. The wine is a surprisingly dry offering, almost arid, but the blend of tannins is very nice and it teases the palate without being bombastic.
The only negative point I have about this wine is the, well, I call it the "carrier wave." There's an undertone that's highly acidic. Not tannin-acidic; this is something slightly different. On first introduction, it almost seems like the wine's been slightly carbonated; it's that kind of bite. And it's a consistent undertone; it's present throughout the bottle. Perhaps I just got a bottle that was past its prime. Or, perhaps this is a feature of Librandi with which I'm not familiar. In any event, it was the only setback in an otherwise very nice table wine.
I would buy this one again, and not just only to see whether the "carrier wave" is still there. It's a welcome addition to my cellar. I give it a 83.
I've heard some good things about Australian wine. Some very good things, in fact. I've tasted one or two before, and though I don't remember most of their names I do recall they were pleasant companions to the palate. I also bid a melancholy farewell to an expensive bottle of Grange Hermitage that met a tragic fate (bottles of wine and tile floors don't get along well if harshly introduced. "Whether the stone hits the pitcher, or the pitcher hits the stone, it's going to be bad for the pitcher."). So, when I went on my last wine-buying mission, I bought two different Australian reds and I've been meaning to--and promising others I would--sample them. Last night, I finally opened the first one.
I have to confess I was a trifle disappointed. The Lindemans started out well; it had a deep, rich hue more purple than red but not so much so that it fell into the "grape juice" appearance. It also had a very nice bouquet. In fact, the bouquet was in a way its undoing, because coming after the lovely fruity scent the extreme level of tannin in this wine was a rude surprise. I guess a diplomat might call this wine "bold." "Brash," even. I found the first taste outright assaultive. Mind you, I mean that more in the sense of a very unexpected surprise; it wasn't a mugging.
Here's the proof of that last sentence; I finished the bottle! Once you get past the brusque arrival of the tannin, the wine's serviceable. The tannin may be extraordinarily high, but its effect is almost all "up front"; there was no discernible aftertaste. And it did seem to smooth out a bit toward the dregs of the bottle. Or, it could just have been that I was getting mellow. Yesterday was a stressful day all around. ~Grin~
Anyway, I'm rating this one an 84. I'm also going to buy another bottle, an earlier one if I can find it. Caradoc recommended the Lindemans and I've found his suggestions accurate over the years, and I may simply have had a bad bottle or 1996 may just have been too young. I'll let you know.
A couple of years ago, I swore a sacred oath that I'd find the perfect wine. "Perfect," for me, meant a wine that tasted wonderful and that was less than seven dollars a bottle. Well, times change, the government keeps looking for new ways to separate us from a little more of our coin, and restaurants persist in marking their potables up by 100% or more. So, reluctantly, I've had to change the definition. "Perfect" now comes at less than ten dollars a bottle.
This one might be it.
I've had a Lindemans before and enjoyed it, so when I found this at my wine merchant's I thought, Why not? All right, it was a little pricey for an Australian wine (that isn't a cut against them or their wines, simply an observation that my wine merchant carries most of them for between $6.00 and $7.00), but the memory of that cabernet made me want to sample something else, something theoretically finer. It wasn't just theory; it was fact. This is an excellent wine.
The color is a little deeper and a little more purple than I usually find in a merlot but it wasn't unpleasant at all. The bouquet is fruity but very, very delicate; in fact, I was eating outdoors after having grilled steaks outdoors, and I had to work pretty hard to catch the bouquet, what with all the other aromas competing at the patio table. The best news is that from first sip to last, the Lindemans is superior. It's smooth, with a wonderful mixture of fruit-sweetness and tart-tang. This wine held up very well with thick steaks, but I wouldn't put it aside with other meats; it can serve with poultry and even seafood. Now, I know some of you out there are blanching at that comment, but my response is: Get over it! There's no rule that says you must have red with beef, white with poultry, etc., and, frankly, anyone who says that's so just isn't well informed. Either that, or they're total snobs.
This is a really excellent wine, and I'm very happy to recommend it. I'm giving it a 95 and it is definitely in contention for Wine of the Year. Try some. You'll be glad you went down under.
You know, I've grown very biased about the Australians, and particularly about the good people at Lindeman's. Every time I go to my wine merchant, now, I take a stroll down the Oz aisle and look for something I can afford. It's getting a little more difficult--like everyone else, the Australians are raising the price of their wine, thanks in no small measure to our government and its asinine views on taxation of consumables. Still, if I can have an experience as pleasant as this bottle yielded for under $15.00, I'm quite happy, all things considered.
There's a deep glow in the purple of this wine, a warmth that comes through in each sip. I find this wine much smoother than similarly priced California piñot noirs, and even taking into account how well the Vacu-Vin recorking system works, this wine holds up well after it's opened. I enjoyed six solid evenings of pleasure with this wine, and that speaks well for any grape of any vintage.
If there's a weakness about the Padthaway, it's in the bouquet. The scent is anemic and hard to catch. What there is of it, however, is comfortable and surprisingly sweet. I say "surprisingly" because the wine itself is anything but sweet; it's a very good, medium-dry, red, and I'm happy to have it in my cellar and to recommend it to you.
Little Black Dress California Piñot Noir 2006
I bought this wine on a whim. I was picking up last-minute groceries for family burger night and as I passed the wine selection in the grocery store, the fact that this wine did not some with a price tag higher than ten dollars caught my eye. Now, I'm not all that impressed by wines with "with it" (am I showing too much of my age?) names or cutesy labels, and this one had both those strikes against it. In the end, the price tag won out.
All things considered, I'm pretty glad it did.
I've learned over the years that there are many variations to the body and flavor of a piñot noir. Some are smooth as liquid silk and others tart almost to the point of roughness. The Little Black Dress is about midway between those two extremes, perhaps leaning a bit more toward the acidic. Frankly, it reminded me of a young cabernet sauvignon, but that isn't a negative thing necessarily. The first sip is a little assaultive on account of that dry, acid rush, but it isn't entirely unpleasant and once you've had the first taste there are nice subtleties that come through in this wine. I couldn't decide if it was reminiscent of cherries or currants.
The bouquet is very pleasant, the color a lovely red leaning into the light, almost burnt purples, and the body is respectable without being too substantial. On flavor alone, I would rank this red a bit lower than I have, but the price goes a long, long way toward improving its stature, especially in these days where finding a drinkable wine under $15.00 is next to impossible.
Besides, I've always been partial of the idea of my lady in a little black dress....
J. Lohr Winery Cypress Cabernet Sauvignon 1993
Date purchased: 10 September 1996
Date consumed: 23 September 1996
I think cabernets are my favorite red wine--but this one isn't going to be one of them. After the buildup it received with me (a close friend whose taste in wine I've usually found quite reliable recommended this wine rather highly), I found the reality to be somewhat of a letdown.
It's a solid enough wine, by all means. Perhaps a little too solid. Granted, one expects a cabernet sauvignon to have a noticeable amount of tannin, and to leave a dryness behind on the palate after it washes down, but in Cypress' case, it was two times too much of a good thing. The tannin level is far too high, making the first taste an outright shock rather than a pleasant tickle. As for dryness, well, "arid expanse" is more what one's palate is like after swallowing this. Worst of all, the shocks of these two excesses don't smooth themselves after more than one glass.
Some of you out there will probably reply, "Well, you shouldn't drink such a young wine!" That may be true, if one is a purist, but the reality is that there are far too many really good, affordable reds out there that one can drink, even "young," that deserve the commendation this sampling, unfortunately, does not.
The wine does have one nice quality. There is a pleasant smoked-wood aftertaste that you sample with the first few sips. This, however, isn't enough to earn a high recommendation from me. Even the price, which is quite competitive, isn't enough to save it. I wouldn't toss the remaining bottle in the trash or anything; it's a serviceable wine for a not-too-important occasion. But, for anything you want to be memorable, pick someone else's cabernet, and leave this one as a cooking aid. I rate it a 55.
You may wish to check my review of the Lohr Cypress 1995 cabernet.
This was one of three wines I opened for my family's Easter dinner this year. My father, my brother, and I are very much more inclined toward red wines than white. Further, I am not one of these people who maintains that one must have white with fish our poultry and red only with beef. Easter dinner this year featured a honey-baked ham, and the three Burnett men had red wine. My mother had a white, which I did sample and which I did review.
The Lohr was a serviceable wine--by which, quite frankly, I mean that it was essentially unremarkable. It was the right color, it had a nice but not awe-inspiring bouquet. It had a goodly dose of tannin and very little fruity undertone, yet at the same time there was little savory hint of the casking, either. It stood the test well but it didn't exactly set off fireworks about the old plantation. Neither did it leave me wanting to purge its memory from my consciousness.
It's a nice, serviceable wine. I'm giving it a 78. It's really nothing that special . . . .
I know, I know: The price is way too high. Well, that's true, but it was a restaurant purchase. At a special restaurant--Tio Pepe's, my favorite restaurant in Houston, a little place in Bellaire that specializes in Spanish cuisine and treats you in traditional Spanish style (by which, I mean they act like you're a beloved member of the family, they do things at a leisurely pace, and they never, never pressure you to hurry, no matter how busy they are). It was our seventeenth anniversary, you see. We took a couple of dear friends there to celebrate, and we enjoyed this fine rioja while we were there. Two bottles! If I thought the Cuvaison (above) was smooth, it was sandpaper compared to the Lorinon. As our waiter said when he recommended it (a word to the wise: The waiters know their stuff about their wine cellar), "It's quite dry, but it has a special flavor." I think that was absolutely precise. Give this one a try, at least once, even if you have to pay restaurant prices for it. My rating for this wine: 95. I'd give it a 100 but for the price.
Los Vascos Domaines Barons de Rothschild (Lafite) Cabernet Sauvignon Colchagua 2000
In the past, I have not been too fond of Chilean wines. I know that the Chilean vintners claim to have the only "authentic" French cabernet sauvignon remaining in the world, since the French vines transplanted in Chile thus escaped the terrible blight that wreaked such havoc in France in the nineteenth century. (As an historical aside, do you know where most of the transplants that rebuilt the French vintages came from? Sit down and get a firm grip, all you hoity-toity types: They came from California!)
This wine has me revising my estimate of the Chilean endeavor--in a distinctly upward direction. Almost everything about this wine was perfect for a cab. We'll start with the color. Deep crimson with just enough purple to enrich the way light hits the liquid. And the bouquet: Full, warm, with a tantalizing aroma, one in which the tannin doesn't so much make you wrinkle your nose as open your eyes a bit more and wonder what this delight will taste like.
In a word--delightful. The tannin level is one of the best I've ever experienced, giving one that pleasant shock, that quickening of the taste buds and tightening of the mouth in a momentary pursing of the lips. And then the full body of the wine glides over your tongue and you enjoy a rich cascade of the wine flavor that warms you from mouth to stomach and from inside out in every direction.
I want to thank my friend Doug for this wonderful gift. I hope you will find this one and give it a try. It really does deserve the Rothschild appellation; I think the old Baron, bless his soul, would be very happy to see it carrying his name.
I'm somewhat puzzled about this wine. The bottle did not identify the type of wine it was. I suppose this is some French snobbery about not telling foreigners the pedigree of a vin ordinaire. Either that, or I need to see the optometrist again.
In any event, I can tell you this about the wine: It was red. It was a little lighter than a merlot, but with the tannins you'd expect in a soft cab.
And it was quite good. I normally don't buy into all that "redolent with cherries, citrus, and berries" crap vintners and reviewers for snobbish publications love to spout, but in this case, such a description would be accurate. The mixture of citrus and something very much like cherry was noteworthy.
Given that the wine is French, it's probably horribly overpriced. It won't surprise me if Trebor tells me tomorrow that he can get gallons of the stuff at Sam's Wholesale Club for $2.99 a metric ton. But for now, I give it the above rating. If it's priced reasonably at non-restaurant levels, I may finally have an exception to my opinion of French wines.
I made my semi-annual pilgrimage to Tio Pepe on Saturday night. Tio Pepe, for those who haven't read some of the other reviews, is my favorite restaurant in the Houston area. It serves Spanish cuisine in a wonderfully relaxed atmosphere. The food is extraordinary, the prices are reasonable, and the wine cellar always proves to be well stocked. Last night was no exception.
Scanning the wine list I saw something described simply as "Caceres Reserva." Well, this clearly wasn't the same as my old standby Marques de Caceres Rioja, which was elsewhere on the list. So, I thought, Why not? I ordered some for our table.
It was superb. The color is deeper, the body much fuller than that "regular" Caceres. I'm now sworn to find this wine at my wine wholesaler and see what the price is without adjusting for restaurant markup and our infinitely benevolent government's fascination with taxing all things beyond the point of reason.
If you find this red wine around, buy some. Enjoy. It merits a 97, easily.
I first sampled Spanish wines in 1985 when I visited Tio Pepe, a small, cozy, Spanish restaurant in Bellaire, Texas. It is still my favorite restaurant in the Houston area, and we try to go there for dinner three or four times a year. Marques was one of the first wines I tasted there, and it's still in my top ten of red wines. For those of you who think the only Spanish wine is sangria, all I can say is you're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong! This is a smooth, semi-dry red wine that, frankly, I think is slightly better than a cabernet as an all-around wine for entertaining or dining.
Its body and bouquet are a bit softer than a cabernet, sort of midway between a cab and a good merlot. There is enough tannin in the wine to give it a tiny bite that you'll remember, but not enough to spoil any mood you might be trying to create with your table wine. This wine will work well with poultry, pork, and any light or medium beef. It probably would not stand up too well with a heavy roast, but it can hold its own if you're serving anything from hamburgers to steaks. And, if you're like me and you like a nice bottle of wine either as an occasional afternoon treat or for after-dinner socializing, Marques will fill your need very nicely, I think. And, at a great price! Forget the Sangria; give the Rioja a try. I happily rate it a 94. But there is a second review of this wine.
I say "Ouch!" because this is a really excellent wine, whose excellence is unfortunately diminished by the idiotic policies of our federal government, raising the tax on alcoholic products. At $7.49, as I reviewed it in 1996, it was stupendous. At nearly twice the price, it's still an excellent wine, but it hurts more to enjoy it. What a difference a year makes. What a difference President Clinton's goofy "we'll tax you if you don't eat and drink what we like" policy makes.
Read my prior review, and if you have $13.00 free sometime, try a bottle.
I purchased this wine partly on the recommendation of a friend, but principally on impulse. I'm getting to believe that I have some sixth sense about these things; the "impulse buys" have proven to be more consistently good than the "recommended" purchases. That was certainly the case with this fine little wine.
The Meridian had a very pleasant bouquet, fruitish without being overly "fruity." The color is smooth and uniformly attractive, from the first glass to the last, even three days later (more about this below). The tannin is a little bit too light, rendering the first glasses a touch too sweet for a "perfect" cab, but this, too, works in the wine's favor if you aren't planning to consume the whole bottle on the first outing. Despite that tiny lack of dryness, the wine has a nice flavor and I think it would work well with most foods.
I didn't have this wine with dinner but rather as an after-dinner civility. It served well there, too. And one thing that the marginal under-tanning did is give this wine durability. It lasted three nights after being opened, with nothing more than a tightly wound napkin packing the neck (the cork engineered an escape from the kitchen and is still at large; I have offered a reward to the neighborhood scavengers for the return of this fugitive) without turning too harsh.
The weakness of the classic cab flavor is its only significant drawback. I'm happy to give this wine a 87, and I do recommend you try a bottle sometime soon.
I think in another review I've said some very complimentary things about Mondavi wines. I stand by those compliments. I simply do not extend them as wholeheartedly to this particular blend and vintage.
The wine has the pleasing appearance and aroma one comes to expect from a Mondavi, but that's about the nicest part of the whole experience. There is a bitter, almost metallic undertaste to the wine. Fortunately, it seems to be strongest only in the first few swallows; if you can stomach this wine to a second or a third glass, the undercurrent becomes almost unnoticeable. Almost.
I won't slam this wine; it did reliable, journeyman service at our dinner table tonight, and with the government's desire to wring every possible tax cent out of wine consumption, the price was acceptable. But I would like to take this opportunity to appeal to the vintners. Ladies, gentlemen, meine Damen und Herren, why do you persist in believing that a "good" wine deserves a high price tag? We should be long past the days of social elitism and outright snobbery that bred the ridiculous notions on wine pricing that led to the incredible overpricing of French vintages, the outlandish underpricing of Italian wines as "common folk" drinks, and the sheer idiocy of the California wines pretending that they should cost more than the French stuff! Please, please, for the sake of your customers, rethink it. For ten dollars a bottle, I should've had something much nicer. Sadly, to get something much nicer, Mondavi and the rest of you believe I should spend twenty-five dollars a bottle.
I grant this wine a 58. Would'st were I could give it a higher rating. Maybe next year's.
This was my second foray into the Coastal selections from Mondavi vineyards. Bernardo and I were visiting my wine merchant, bemoaning the fact that over the last two years, one of our criteria for the "perfect" vin ordinaire -- price -- has had to rise drastically, thanks in no small part to the Clinton administration's policies on taxation and knowing what's best for us (yeah, right, sure). Where $7.00 was the high end of "perfect" in 1997, $10.00 is too often the mid-range of "perfect" today.
Oh, well, you can't have everything (where would you keep it?), and even with the "escalation of perfection," you can still find some very nice wines for your ordinary table. This Mondavi is a very good example.
I admit that I'm biased in favor of Mondavi wines; even their pricier offerings rate a smile from me, although I can seldom afford them. But their vins ordinaires are often nothing short of outstanding, and this merlot comes very close, even if it is a wee bit young. It has a nice combination of tartness and an underlying smoothness that promises a very nice ride, indeed, when this wine is a bit older.
I bought two bottles. I'm going to save the other for a year or so and then give it another try. Even now, it's well worth the high end of the mid-range of perfect.
I always enjoy visiting Provost for a casual evening. His home is lovely, a modern recreation of the Victorian style that in many ways he's taken the time and trouble to appoint in that same style. He and his life's companion Carlotta (that's a nickname, too) are wonderful friends and superb hosts. And Provost always sets a fine table and makes sure the glasses are full of something memorable from his wine cellar.
Such was the case on this Saturday dinner. I'd say the Mondavi made an excellent wine for our very, very pleasant dinner but that wouldn't be accurate, because we actually drank most of it before dinner was ready. We were eating homemade (and delicious) Mexican food that night, and what goes better with homemade (and delicious) Mexican food than homemade (and equally delicious) sangria? But that's a subject for another review. Back to the Mondavi.
The color was bright without being overbearing, though the bouquet was weak. On the other hand, as more than half the time Provost and I were sitting outside tending the fajitas on the smoker, the bouquet, even if there'd been one of note, would largely have been lost in the smoky smell and the great outdoors. I don't measure a wine too much by its aroma, but I know that some people do, and if you're one of them, you may be a little put off by the weakness of this piñot's scent.
It holds the line an acceptable line in taste. The piñot was a bit too dry, but there was enough of a fruity undertone to save the overall experience and there was no aftertaste, even at the end of the bottle. It wasn't heavy by any means and I think it could do acceptable service as a companion to most meals. It certainly worked hard enough at making the pre-dinner conversation flow smoothly and pleasantly, and it largely succeeded.
The price is a drawback for me. I really like Mondavi wines, but it saddens me that the theory so long holding sway in France has taken over California. Just because it's good doesn't mean it has to have a restaurant-sized price tag stuck on it. So, I'll give this one an 85 on a scale that doesn't take price into account, but drop it twelve points for price adjustment. Take your pick, 85 or 73. Either way, it's a very good wine.
31 July is my brother's birthday. On 2 August, we celebrated his fifty-second one. I smoked a brisket, and I opened a couple of bottles of wine. The Monterey was the first, and I liked it. It had a very nice reddish purple hue and a bouquet that reminded me of cherries and, oddly, apples--though the latter was a very faint, and very pleasant, surprise. The first sip was a bit harsh; there are more tannins in this wine than there should be, even for a cabernet, but it wasn't overpowering and the overall smoothness of the wine worked well with what I'd call "family fare" food--brisket, potato salad, and fresh green salad.
One drawback is the predilection of the vintner to stamp "TMV" in fairly obtrusive letters on the neck ring and everywhere he can on the label. Yes, I understand that "TMV" is an abbreviation for the rather unimaginative name of the vineyard. Still, the way my mind works, the appellation looks like an abbreviaton for a government rural relief agency, an evangelical television station, or a dread disease.
Then again, I wasn't drinking the neck ring or the label. The part I was drinking was rather good, and certainly deserves another sampling in the future. You might like this 85-rated wine.
Oh, this one might be The One for 1998. The One is that singular special wine that fits all my criteria: Appearance, quality, and price. I bought this on impulse during a wine-stocking mission with Provost. He sort of sneered at the selection. He declined to buy any.
He made a mistake. This wine is delicious.
Now, I confess the label reeled me in even without consideration for the wine. It's elegant and simple, a deep green with a gold hart and the name of the wine in plain gold letters. I like greens. I liked the logo. And I really like the fact that the label was in front of such a pleasant experience for my lips, tongue, and throat.
I've not had a cabernet franc before and I have no idea what the "franc" signifies (yes, out there, I do know that "franc" means "French"). The Monthaven is a deep, full crimson, with just the right splash of purple and just the right reddish tones to make it look sophisticated in any wine glass. Leaves, just beginning to turn, and fruits, particularly cherries, pepper the bouquet like witty little promises of something lustier.
The first taste is smooth, almost seamless. The tannin doesn't burn you; it warms your tongue before giving way to a lovely fullness of fruits, spice, and just the right hint of time spent in oaken embraces. There is no aftertaste. And bear in mind this is a 1993 vintage. Some think reds won't keep well for four years. Well, this one did. I'm going to get some more of this little gem this week.
I see no reason why the Monthaven would not go well with any kind of food. Or without food; it would make an excellent refreshment for simple entertainment, day or night. I am very happy to commend this one to you with a solidly earned 93, my friends. Slàinte!
This is the second offering I've tried from Monthaven Vineyards in St. Helena, California. I enjoyed my first sampling, their Cabernet Franc, quite a lot--though I doubt I'd try a 1993 wine today!
The '96 malbec was lovely, however. Much more full-bodied than I expected, nevertheless it was not a heavy wine. It would have been equally suitable with beef or a lighter fare, and it was a lighthearted enough wine to serve as liquid refreshment in its own right, without the trappings of a meal, if necessary.
At under $10.00 a bottle, the price is quite palatable, too. I shall buy another couple of bottles of this--I got the first one on speculation, remembering how I'd enjoyed the cabernet franc years ago--the next time I go to my wine merchant. If you happen across this one, give it a try, especially if you've never sampled a malbec before. I hadn't, but I assure you this won't be the only one I try in this lifetime.
I was a little bit hesitant about opening another Australian wine this young after having tasted the Lindeman's 1996 cabernet. The desire for a merlot one evening won out, however, and on balance, I'm glad that it did. This was a very pleasant wine to while away a Friday Eve evening.
Truthfully, the more I think about this wine, the more I like it. I like everything about it. We'll start with the label. In my opinion, vintners do a lot of things wrong with labels. Some of them make them too gaudy, as if they were supposed to be bumper stickers. I don't know how many people are drawn to pull a particular wine off the wine merchant's shelf because a biliously colored label shrieks, "TRY ME!!!!!" but I'm not one of them. And other vintners make their labels too busy. One shouldn't die of information overload just trying to figure out what kind of wine is in the bottle and when the vintner bottled it. And some labels are just dumb. I guess the vintners are trying to appeal to a particular segment of the "younger crowd," whatever that is. I don't care for a label that is just silly
The folks at Oxford Landing have a nice label. It's quiet, it's sedate, it's the epitome of understatement. And the reason I've gone on about the label is that the wine inside the bottle is very much like that excellently smooth label; it's a masterpiece of understatement.
The merlot had a rich, deep color that caught the light and prismed it so that it appeared to be flowing out from within the heart of the wine. It was nice to look at! And the Oxford Landing carried a very nice bouquet, too, a lovely scent replete with floral undercurrents and a nice, even mixture of fruity blends.
If you like a quiet fructal seduction of your palate, you'll like sipping this little treat as well. There's a rich cherry flavor (I positively love cherries) running just beneath the taste buds' surface impressions, with enough tannin to make it pleasantly tart. A thread of oak and a hint of other fruit traces compete in the background, but politely so. This wine was delicious.
And, to my surprise--for I do not have one of those vacuum plugging things for opened bottles--the wine actually became smoother after the first night. I've had about three glasses of this stuff, and there are a few more in the bottle, and I'm looking forward to getting my fair share of them.
Some of you will say a '96 is too young. Some of you are wrong. This wine was a very, very good choice, and I'm picking up several bottles more next week. Between the great flavor and the moderate price, it deserves the 91 I'm giving it. Major kudos to Nonnie for suggesting this one.
As you can tell pretty easily from the way they dominate my wine cellar, I've drunk quite a few cabernet sauvignons over the years. While my absolute favorite reds are not cabs, I think cabs are the most versatile of red wines, particularly if all you can afford is a vin ordinaire.
"Ordinary" isn't quite the right word for the Powers. In fact, I've been looking in the thesaurus, trying to find one that conveys the most accurate impression of this wine. "Mediocre." Hmm. A little too kind. "Middling." That's closer. "Unimpressive." Closer still.
Let's put it this way. I've drunk cabs that were so dry they ate the top layer of my tongue, and so sweet (for supposedly dry wines) that they were like a purple chablis. But this is the first cabernet I've had that was neutral in flavor. It wasn't sweet so that one would take notice, and it certainly wasn't dry. If anything, it tasted like mass-produced, screw-top-bottle, six-pack wine. Yes, that's it, like a wine cooler without the "cooler" part.
I'm sorry, I expect more from a cabernet. Even a very affordable one. Oh, well, live and learn. Tonight I'll open another new find and, hopefully, it will be worthy of more--and nicer--comment.
This wine was a Christmas gift from Mischief. I'm uncommonly fond of Italian reds but my experience heretofore has been with "identifiable" wines; that is, with barolos, bardolinos, valpolicelli, chiantis, etc. If my Italian is right (and I'm not promising that it is), this one's label means "red table wine from Tuscany."
Well, I don't care what it's pedigree may be. It's darned good.
The wine has a rich, deep color but surprisingly light bouquet and legs. The first sip is tart but not seccid, and there's a fair touch of citrus underlying the superstructure of the wine's flavor. Not too heavy, neither too sweet nor too dry. For an "unidentified" table wine, the Promis was a very pleasant first experience. I may have to adjust my view if and when I learn its retail price, but right now, this one's high on my list with a deserved 87 for flavor.
This is the second Rosemount I've sampled. The first, a 1997 shiraz, was a mediocre find. I hate to report that this wine, a year older and a different type, was not much better.
The bottle is a lovely thing. It truly is. it's a very nice shade of light olive and it has an elegantly scripted "R" embossed on it. And I like the label; it's a simple, dignified tag.
You should have guessed by now that if my best recommendations about this wine are the bottle style and label's aesthetics, there's precious little inside the bottle for me to recommend. And, sadly, that is the case.
The wine is sharp, to the point that it tastes carbonated. Very sharp and very sweet; it's an interesting combination but not a particularly thrilling one. I prefer a wine that, sweet or dry, will embrace the tongue softly and caress the palate almost erotically, warming the throat as it goes down. The Rosemount gives the tongue a quick sting, squeezes the back of the mouth almost to the point you cannot breathe, and then drops like a mild abrasive down the gullet. Not my idea of a great experience with the grape.
If you like a wine that mimics a Bartles & James red wine cooler, but isn't cool, then this may be to your liking. Or, you could just drop an Alka-Seltzer and a shot of vodka into a glass of grape Kool-Aid and have pretty much the same thing. And $8.00 worth of Alka-Seltzer will let you spike a lot of Kool-Aid. I rate this a 48.
I wasn't really looking for this wine when I bought it. I was looking for another shiraz--Montrose Black Shiraz, to be precise. But my wine merchant didn't carry it and, not wanting to come home empty-handed in the shiraz department, I picked this one up.
It was okay, but nothing remarkable. The bouquet was strong almost to the point of being brash, and it carried a spike in its scent that matched the sharpness of the tannin in the first taste. This bottle didn't mellow much, either, as I went along.
Now, it may be that this is what a shiraz is supposed to taste like; this was my first excursion. And I note that it is a 1997 wine, and thus perhaps a little young for its vintage. I'll probably give it another try--but not if I can find the Montrose, as recommended.
But if it's a choice between this and a slightly more expensive wine with a smoother approach, I'll take the smoother approach. This one gets a 65.
Once again, the Italian winemakers have justified my faith in them. This is one of the more pricey Italian reds (though by no means the most so; sadly, these wines, once more affordable for their quality than practically anyone else's, have declined marginally in quality as mass-production has taken hold and have risen dramatically--tragically, really--in price) in my cellar, but even after five years the wine was excellent.
Italian cabs have a certain something that makes them different from other cabernets I've tasted. I can't really describe it. Yes, they're pert little hussies, just like all good cabernets are, but there's a kind of sophistication to their pertness that I haven't found the same with any other wine. If, perhaps, they aren't quite like an elegant lady in a silk gown and diamonds, they're the same elegant lady in prime sable . . . and nothing else. The difference is by no means an unpleasant one.
Try the Santa Margherita if you're looking for a subtle and pleasing difference in the cabernets you drink. I think you may end up liking sable.
All right, I need to make an explanation here. Regulars to the Wine Cellar know that while I won't refuse an expensive wine, neither am I in a hurry to spend what little disposable income I have on the pricier vintages, and typically, my feeling is that price does not necessarily denote quality, and the higher the price a wine has, the more likely that wine is to be unreasonably overpriced.
I don't give high 90s to such wines, as a matter of course. But I'm giving it to this one, and for two reasons.
I had this wine my second-to-last night at Walt Disney World on my summer, 2000 vacation. The trip to Disney really was, to use their word, magical, and the last few evenings were the best of all. On the next to last night, I dined at Bistro de Paris, the more upscale of the two French restaurants in the World Showcase. ("More" is a very relative term; the price differential between the two restaurants is almost indistinguishable.) Everything about the dinner was magnificent, especially the company, as my youngest daughter is turning into a very special young woman and young lady. What better way to celebrate the dinner than with a nice French wine?
And the St. Georges was a very nice wine. It was dry but not overbearingly so, retaining a wonderful fruitiness that still wasn't sweet. If there was a downside to this wine, it was that it was so terribly expensive. I wish I could have had an entire bottle.
Then again, if I had, I'd probably still be at Epcot, tottering ineffectually back to my hotel . . . .
UPDATE: I located the St. Emilion St. George at my wine merchant. The price for a 750 ml bottle was $38.00, which makes the markup at Bistro de Paris at Epcot roughly 4:1. Given that such a markup is not unusual in many restaurants, I make no criticism of the People of Mickey over this one, I merely report the information!
~Highlander~
First, a restaurant recommendation. If you're in Houston, and you want Italian food, and you don't care about trendy "atmosphere," then go to Fred's Italian Corner. It's a little out-of-the-way place . . . to be frank, from the outside it's a bit of a dump . . . in a shopping center at the corner of Greenbriar and Holcombe, not far from Rice University and the Houston Medical Center. Inside, it's tiny and packed with tables--and savory aromas, and friendly waiters, and DELICIOUS food. Fred's has the three things to recommend it as a five-star restaurant in my Guide to Fine Dining: Great food, excellent service, eminently affordable prices.
Their wine cellar, on the other hand, needs a little work. It's serviceable, and so are their wines, but you aren't going to find a vintage here that will make or break the evening.
The Santa Rita is an example. None of us had ever had it, and it was pleasant enough, but it wasn't all that great. I'd say it wasn't worth the $12.00 I spent for the bottle, except that's a low price, nowadays, for restaurant-served wines of any caliber. And, given that pricing reflection, it wasn't bad.
It wasn't so much dry as quite tangy and leaning a little on the bitter side. The color was okay, but nothing to warm the eyes. Overall, as I said, a serviceable wine. A 52. It could rise to a 65 if the store price is less than $6.00, but I doubt that.
I would love to give this wine a high rating, but I just can't. Much as I want to, it just violates the price criterion all over the place.
I realize restaurants mark up the contents of their wine cellars. I realize, too, that this was a very nice restaurant and that it carries a higher-end price tag on its fare. But something in me rebels when $42.00 is among the cheaper entries on the wine list, and that merely delivers a serviceable--not an extraordinary, but serviceable--wine.
The Simi would be a great wine with a $10.00 or even $15.00 price tag. It would be a superb wine with a $7.00 or $8.00 price tag. Below that, it would qualify as nectar of the gods. But figuring the markup, I'm sorry, it wasn't a great wine for $30.00 a bottle, and certainly not for what it cost.
So here's what I'm going to do. I'm rating this wine a 30, but I'm recommending that you do try it if you have the opportunity (and several thousand gold pieces lying around doing nothing). I'd like to re-rate this wine based on its store rather than its restaurant price, so if you know what this wine goes for in a wine store (retail, discount, wholesale, whatever), would you be so kind as to let me know?
UPDATE: Having checked several wine merchants, I found the Simi available at slightly more than half the price the restaurant in question sought for it. That surprised me; I figured that restaurant would be more in the three-to-one markup area than the two-to-one. Oh, well, you learn something new every day. Based on my findings, I've revised the rating from 30 to 72.
~Highlander~
For the last thirteen years, Bernardo and I have taken off work on a Friday afternoon in early October to attend the annual Houston Greek Festival. This has become a tradition--the pistatsio, the spanakopita, the souvlaki . . . and the Greek wines. One in particular. See the review below.
In recent years, I've also gone to the Festival on the following Saturday evening. Usually, I end up trying some of the other vintage offerings. I did that this year.
I truly wish I hadn't. The wine, I mean. Ugh.
This was one of the two wines I tried that evening. It was wet. The wine, I mean. That's about the nicest thing I can say for it.
No aroma. Not much flavor. "Medium dry." Well, yes, I suppose. If your idea of a "medium dry" wine is one that puckers your lips until you're seriously worried that you may swallow your incisors. If you munch on pure alum for a snack, then this garbage is "medium dry."
$12.00 a bottle is an offense against God, Man, and Nature. $12.00 a case would be a crime against humanity. But because it contributed to the pleasant evening--it gave us something to talk about--I'll give it 28 more points than it deserves.
All I can say about this liquified offal is, it isn't quite as bad as Sitia's red wine. It's a bischen smoother. Everything I wrote about the "medium dry red" applies here. This offering is very marginally better.
That's all. That's all there needs to be.
Earlier this year, I reviewed this wine's younger brother. Given the so-so performance of the 1994 cab, I didn't really expect that much from the 1992 variety.
I was neither disappointed nor surprised. The more Sutter Home I drink, the more I conclude it is a good, serviceable table wine. The '92 had a nicer bouquet than I recall from the '94, and the color between the two was essentially indistinguishable. But it was a very smooth wine, much smoother than one usually gets with a cabernet. On the other hand, having suffered through the Far Niente earlier in the evening, my taste buds may have been on strike.
In any event, it mellowed out an already pleasant dinner, went well with steak and grilled chicken, and helped to close out the Fourth of July weekend. The '94 got a 52; I'll give the '92 a 67.
When I was a boy, I overheard my father saying to another man, "If you do your job right, one day you look at your child and say, 'There goes a pretty nice man.' Of course, along the way, he's going to scare the hell out of you." Leaving aside his second comment, I'd like to concentrate on the first. Last weekend, our oldest daughter and her husband invited us to dinner at their house. This was the first opportunity to visit their home since they moved back to Texas from North Dakota, where our son (I refuse to use the "in-law" part) was stationed while in the Air Force. It was a strange experience, going to their house (which used to be our house) and seeing their things in "our" old rooms. But dinner was wonderful, from an epicurean and even more from an emotional perspective. My father was right; one day, if you're very lucky, you look at this adult who used to be your child and realize she's turned into a wonderful lady. I'm very fortunate.
But, I digress. We offered to bring the wine and the bread, and so we stopped at the store and I bought several bottles of wine. The Sutter Home was one I picked up on an impulse as the price was right and (by now you, dear readers should know this) I can never have too many bottles of cab. Last Monday evening, I sampled it. It was all right. Not excellent, not exciting, even, but all right. For the price, I cannot complain--though I honestly have little to praise, either.
The color was just about right, which was a pleasant surprise for me, since my past experiences with Sutter Home has been that their wines tend to appear too dark. The bouquet was fairly pleasant, in fact, I just sniffed the wine again (four days after opening it) and there remains a very nice balance of fruitiness and that subtle scent in cabs I call the "spark." It's a fairly durable wine; last night's glass was still potable, and I do not use the vacuum recorkers on my wines.
It was in taste, and even more in aftertaste, though, that this cab fell down. If it had a bit more character to its flavor, I'd say the taste was flat; instead, bland is a better term. Not so bland that you think your wine has been watered, but it just doesn't sit up and demonstrate any strength. Considering that cabs aren't the most robust wines in the first place, perhaps you see what I'm driving at. As for aftertaste, it didn't have one. Not a pleasant one, not an unpleasant one. It just sort of washed down the throat and didn't leave much of a reminder of its passage.
You could use this wine in cooking, I think, and you could serve it with an independent meal--the kind of food whose flavor is complete enough not to need liquid accommodation. I don't recommend it for sipping just by itself, however. Maybe with a strong cheese--or a flavored popcorn. Let's say it earned a 52.
Sutter Home Family Vineyard California Merlot 2006
That's right, you read it correctly: A domestic vin ordinaire in the top eight percent of my rated wines, and at less than six dollars a bottle. When I saw the price on this one at the local grocery store, I had to stop and make sure it wasn't on sale. No, that's its current "normal" price.
They only had four bottles in stock. I bought two. I went back today and got the last one. Some other lucky so-and-so got the fourth. Salud, amigo.
Overall, my favorite red wines are the cabernet sauvignon, the merlot, and the piñot noir. I'm listing them alphabetically because I have no all-time favorite. Preferring dry reds as I do, these prove the most serviceable, and the most affordable, but just which one is "the best" varies as I experience different vintages and bottles.
By any standard, the Sutter Home merlot should be a favorite. It had a rich, smooth flavor and a wonderful bouquet--a surprising bouquet, in fact, for it hinted at a much sweeter experience than the wine tasted. That is not a complaint; see my statement above about dry reds.
There was a nice undertaste of oak aging, hearty without being oppressive and noticeable without being so smoky as to dominate the aftertaste. The color was quite good. Drew was drinking this wine with me and his glass seemed to have some sediment on the sides, but mine didn't show any sediment from either bottle we consumed.
Give this one a try. It's more than worth the price.
All right, perhaps this is a review that shouldn't be here. After all, one of my purposes in maintaining the Wine Cellar is to introduce you to wines I've sampled and enjoyed (or in some cases, to steer you away from wines I think shouldn't be sampled), and in this particular case, I'm reviewing a wine that most of you will never have the chance to enjoy. But a good wine deserves its praise whether it's a mass-produced jug wine, a fine vintage, or in this case, a specialty preparation that only a lucky few get to experience.
If you note the date of tasting, you'll notice that's the same date as when I tasted a Mondavi Piñot Noir at Provost's. And if you check that review, you'll note we also enjoyed a homemade sangria. Bingo! This is that wine.
Carlotta, all I can tell you is, it was delicious. I still haven't a clue what kind of wine you put in it, but it was perfect with the fruits and whatever other additions you made. It was a bright, fruity, fun wine to drink icy while we enjoyed those savory beef and chicken fajitas, and you deserve a couple dozen stars in your crown for being so gracious as to give me such pleasant evening. You're as priceless as your sangria.
And Provost, you're a lucky man.
As for the rest of us, well, some will enjoy Talking Leaves again, I'm sure, and I'm looking forward to it. And if I can ever pry the recipe for it out of Carlotta, I may post it in the Wine Cellar for others to enjoy. Something that good shouldn't be kept secret forever. The world can never have too many 107-rated wines.
I embarked last weekend on a search for moderately priced wines. By
"moderately priced," I mean less than $8.00 at retail prices. I selected three;
the Talus was the lowest-priced of the triplet.
I was very pleasantly surprised. I wouldn't rate it as one of the best wines I've ever
had--it was a little weak, even for a Zinfandel--but it had a nice bouquet and a very
pleasing color. The taste, as I've said, was rather mild; it would be an excellent wine
with a very light poultry, but forget trying to have it meet a heavy meal of
any kind.
Price is the great redeeming feature here; a pleasant-tasting wine at a very good price.
With my rating of a 74, it's worth another trip to Randall's to see if I can pick up
another bottle.
My very best friend recently commented disapprovingly on my method of storing wines. I
don't have a fancy wine cellar, you see. I have a 25-bottle wine rack that, given the
layout of my kitchen, reposes atop the oven cabinet. Now, the oven is actually two spaces
and thus a good four feet below the wine rack--the space in between holding the built-in
microwave oven--but the
observation was that the site was too warm for my wines, and that they would suffer
accordingly.
So, last weekend, I went through the rack, removing all of the older wines and replacing them with 1995 or newer vintages. That left me with nine bottles of vintner's pleasure sitting on the counter, and thus the time has come to sample these old finds and see if they're still potable. I'm happy to report that the salice not only survived the oven-top storage (and at least two changes of abode, too), but endured it very well indeed.
The wine is darker than a cabernet, and more purple than a bordeaux though not nearly as purple as a burgundy. Its bouquet is nothing to write home about at the first whiff, but it seemed to mellow as the evening went on. The flavor? A bit acidic, but not too much so. I had this wine with a bowl of bow tie pasta in deep meat sauce, a fresh green salad, and homemade bread, and it served well enough that I'm going to enjoy another glass of it before turning in tonight.
Give it an 80, possibly higher if the acidity is due to my storage more than the aging process. I haven't looked for this wine at my wine seller (I was there just today and should've thought to check on it), so I cannot report a price for you. But if you see it out there, and it isn't atrociously expensive, you may want to pick up a bottle and see how well that one aged. This one met its maturity splendidly.
Breathing is good for you. Breathing is essential, in fact. Some say that breathing is essential for wines. Personally, I'm not convinced that this is such a truism as to be necessary with every red wine, every time you open a new bottle. Personally, I think that much of the oenic mystique is a bunch of arrogant folderol created by self-important individuals to pass their time on slow days.
Personally, I think breathing is very necessary for this wine. Two different kinds of breathing, as a matter of fact.
First, you should take a long, slow breath before you plunk down for this plonk. It's not spectacular. It couldn't be spectacular if its life depended on it. The first whiff of this wine is vaguely reminiscent of not-especially-great vinegar and the first taste is . . . well, let's just say this. One definition of "Tessera" is "a small square of bone, wood, or the like, used as a token." The first passage of this liquid over your tongue will convince you that the vintner quite likely used wood and bone in making it. As for the "or the like," I don't like to think about what it might have been.
Perhaps I'm being too harsh. But I bought this wine on my birthday, on the recommendation of a friend, and it was a bitter, bitter surprise. My recommendation: Save your money. Stick with wines that don't have "bone, wood, or the like" in them.
Oh, and the other breath? Simple. If you're bound and determined to drink this wine, let it breathe at least overnight. I'm not kidding. I forgot to Vacu-Vin my bottle after opening it and, believe it or not, it was much better the next evening.
Even so, take the first breath and avoid the other one.
Okay, I can't remember. Is "Turning Leaf" supposed to be the budget Gallo label, the trendy Gallo label, or the elegant Gallo label? I really can't tell. Whichever one it is, this wine needs a little more work.
This is a relatively decent wine, but there's something about it that makes me wonder if it's really a cabernet sauvignon or actually a blend of various wines that no one wanted to confess to? The color's wrong, to start with. A cab should have a reddish hue within or beneath the purpling of the grapes. This wine was purple. It was almost violet.
The bouquet didn't seem like a cab's, either. There was a high citrus smell to the wine that was far too reminiscent of lemons. Testing its scent, I almost wondered if someone had bottled sangria and put the wrong label on the vessel.
It had a decent flavor--but not a cab's flavor. I know that many cabs have a high tannin level but this one went far beyond anything that might be termed reasonable. It wasn't "tart"--it was "pucker factor."
Yet, if one lives through all those shocks it really isn't that bad a wine. There was no discernible aftertaste (or perhaps it was just a continuation of the immediate reaction to all that tannin). There was a sweetness that was uncharacteristic of a cabernet but was not unpleasant once one got past that surprise. In fact, on balance, it was almost as if a burgundy decided to masquerade as a cabernet.
Perhaps whoever slapped the label on this bottle used the wrong one. Or perhaps it was simply a bad bottle. But with the 42 I'm giving it, it doesn't rate further experimentation.
I was browsing at Spec's and, as I often do, ended up perusing the Australian section. Usually, I'm hesitant to purchase a foreign wine priced as low as this one. It's been my experience that really low-priced foreign vins ordinaire are several grades below ordinary.
This one wasn't. This was excellent. Nonnie pronounces this "a good quaffing wine" and it really is.
I don't know exactly what a shiraz is. I'm told the same wine has a different nomenclature in the United States but I haven't been able to discern what it's called here. The shirazes I've tried have ranged between tangy (almost to the point of seeming carbonated) and weakly sweet, but the Tyrrell's ranged to neither of these unpleasant extremes. It was . . . .well, spicy. The flavor was savory and grew even smoother without weakening noticeably three days after I opened the bottle.
Which underscores its second high point. The Tyrrell's was durable as well as potable! I finally had to toss the last of my bottle of Warre's Warrior porto; it was almost two years old and it had finally turned. Nothing lasts forever, especially wines once they're opened, and so I was very happy to discover a wine so cheap, that lasted so well once I opened it.
And then, there's the price. It's hard to find a decent drinking wine at a decent drinking-wine price, but this lot of Tyrrell's fills the bill very nicely.
I only hope the Clinton Administration doesn't discover this. In light of its territorialism concerning lamb, it might just tariff this wonderful vin de quaffe, too.
From the wonderful, deep purple color to the rich bouquet, from the tiny shock of the tannin when your first sip touches your tongue to the silky warmth sliding down your throat when you swallow, this was a very pleasant wine.
I need say no more. The bouquet was elegant but not overdone. The tartness was just right, immediate and powerful enough to give that nice, quick, sharp pucker to one's lips but not so strong that the second sip merely dried already arid tissues in one's mouth. The flavor was rich without being overbearing. It kept well, both opened for several hours and Vacu-Vinned and reopened two days later.
Who says you can't get something very nice for this price?
This was a spur-of-the-moment, "might be fun" purchase. I was buying some other wine and came across this Romanian cabernet standing saucily amidst his staid, more respectable cousins.
Now, I didn't buy this wine totally out of irreverence. Years ago, I had a bottle of Egri Bikaver, a Hungarian wine, a deep, deep red (the name means "bull's blood," I'm told), and it was very good. Egri Bikaver has gone down in quality rather noticeably since the early 1980's, but I've always remembered the flavor and thus have not closed my mind to eastern European wines. I've always hoped one day I'd find another Egri Bikaver.
This wasn't it.
The color is a deep purple. Too purple, in fact; it looks like a thick grape Koolaid laced with just enough red to make it look like a wine. It wasn't an unpleasant hue, but it just wasn't right. What was even more wrong was the bouquet. In a word, yuck. Maybe this really is what vampire's drink. Maybe this is why they drink blood, too, if this is all they can get. The wine's aroma was dessicated and somewhat stale; imagine an old pair of socks left out in the garage for a year or two, and you're close. On the other hand, the bouquet was not strong, and after a glass or two, I couldn't notice it at all.
Now, after all the foregoing, you're probably expecting me to say it tasted worse than
it smelled. Frankly, that isn't true; the flavor wasn't at all unpleasant. It was a very
dry cab taste, slightly more than expected, but not overly so. I like dry wines, so the
dessicant actually came as a pleasant surprise. There was a surprisingly good aftertaste
to this wine, too. But it's loaded with sulfites. I'm not especially sensitive to them,
but this wine gave me a headache very quickly.
One other point about this find: It stains. I mean, it stains!
My drinking partner (do you think I'd down a whole bottle of this stuff by myself?)
spilled a few drops on the carpet. We hit them immediately with club soda, blotters, and
then salt. It still stained the carpet so deeply that it took no less than four
applications of the cleaning solution that the Little Green Machine uses before they
faded.
On the whole, the best thing about this wine is its price. Sadly, that isn't enough to save it. But, if any of you find a pre-1980's Egri Bikaver unopened and in good condition, please let me know. As for Vampire . . . drive a stake through its heart. It earned a 20.
This was the second of two very good and affordable French wines I encountered in October, 2000. As best I can determine, this Vichon is not the Vichon vin haute, but rather a vin ordinaire imported through the Mondavi resources. The label reflects that the company is in the Napa, California region, yet it clearly states it is a product of France. I checked, and Mondavi does have a Vichon label, but the only offering I could confirm under that flag was a merlot.
In any event, this wine is a nice treat. Well under ten dollars in price and appealingly mellow in flavor, it holds that flavor well throughout three days of sampling. It was a tad tart when I opened it--not "dry" tart but "past its prime" tart--which didn't surprise me too much as the bottle was almost six years old and hadn't been stored in the most painstaking of manners. An hour of breathing solved that small problem and I proceeded to enjoy this bottle, as I've said, for several days.
I heartily recommend this project to you if you like cabernets. Wouldst t'were I could afford the haute Vichon with any regularity! The wines I've tried this month might just make me reverse my stand on the price-versus-quality rating of French vintages.
On this particular Saturday evening, I was at a friend's fortieth birthday party. I didn't know that many people there--most of the party-goers were also members of her family who had come in for a big (close to thirty people) family reunion earlier in the week--and so the mingling process went a little quicker than usual, as I circulated, trying to see a face I recognized. My travels took me to a sun room in which our hosts had set up the drinks--a keg of beer, a bucket of "pour in the tequila and put it in the freezer" margarita mix, all slushed and ready to be scooped into plastic cups, a collection of soft drinks, and a couple of bottles of wine. "Try this one, it's really good!" one person I did know suggested. So I did.
Well, you can't win 'em all.
This is the second Chilean wine I've had, and frankly, two strikes is all they should get. I've heard these rumors over the past year or two that the Chilean vineyards have the last remaining vines of the original stock of certain French grapes, stocks whose French counterparts perished in a blight of some sort in recent history, and thus that Chilean wine is the only authentic "French" wine remaining in the world. I don't know if any of that is true. I do know that their wines . . . well, stink.
The cabernet came bottled inside a burlap sack. Maybe this is considered chic; I thought it was tacky packaging. As the bottles had already been opened, I could not smell the cork or give you any report on its initial bouquet. Its bouquet once poured in the glass was highly acidic, almost metallic. The tannins were so high as to be an affront to--no, that isn't quite it, it was more like an outright assault on the tastebuds. It had a distinctly metallic aftertaste that clung to the back of my throat far longer than was polite even if we had been on intimate terms . . . and I certainly didn't want to be.
If this was a gift for my friend, then I'm sure the gift-giver meant well, and I intend no criticism of the donor because of the nature of the donation. But whatever the reason for its presence on the serving table, this wine needed to be somewhere else. Preferably back in Chile. Being poured down the sink.
17, and that's being generous.
Is it possible not to say anything nice about a Mondavi wine? Is anyone dumb enough to do that? Is anyone crazy enough? Is anyone brave enough? I don't know--and we aren't going to find out on this page this month. Truth, after all, comes out, and as long as Mondavi continues bottling wines as good as this one, there won't be any reason to be that dumb, crazy, or brave.
Although you may feel I'm drinking this one rather young, it has a very smooth way about it that belies its youth. I've had longer-seasoned reds that didn't have the tactfulness of this wine. It doesn't leap forward from the rack and shout for attention; rather, it sits sedately in its glass and says, with a quiet dignity, "I think you'll enjoy this." I did, especially at the price (okay, it was on sale at my grocer's). It also survived repeat samplings over two more nights, and I don't have one of those fancy, air-sucking recorker thingamajigs. Give it a try, if you want a civilized red well worth the 80 I'm giving it.
According to the back label, Wynn's is the oldest established winery in the Coonawarra region of Australia. The blurb goes on to state that the soil structure is unique in providing drainage so that the vines produce "intensely flavored grapes." Intense is a good word here; this was a cabernet with a strong personality. Any stronger, and it would've qualified as a wine with attitude.
As it was, the personality, though strong, wasn't offensive. There's a sharp, almost pungent grasp to the bouquet and the first sip is memorable indeed, with spices and citrus competing to see which can deliver the most "snap" to the taste buds. But behind the strong personality there's a pleasant warmth, and not only in the pit of one's stomach following the first full swallow. The body of this wine is reassuring without being pushy. It's sophisticated enough to handle a meal of fairly heavy beef well but it isn't so complex that it would overpower lighter fare.
Two words to the wise here. First, the tannin level in this wine seems high, even for a cabernet. Not too high, but high; if you're thinking of serving a red with a sweetness to it, look elsewhere. You won't do this wine justice by expecting it to be the strawberries to something else's chocolate.
And, second, while I don't know what kind of "shelf life" Coonawarra wines enjoy, this one seemed to be approaching the end of its serviceable time. By the middle of this year (1999), the Wynn's may be well past its prime. This particular bottle was borderline for me in that respect. Try a younger one, I'd suggest.