WineLife365

Posts Tagged ‘Blend’

This one’s for you, Casey!

A while ago, a dear friend of mine came walking through our front door carrying a big jug of wine in her hand, called Wine Garage.  I thought to myself, “Holy crap, she’s either homeless and never told us, or she’s smoked way too much Christmas Weed?!”  I wanted to say, “CHILD PLEASE!  Have you done lost your wine-soaked mind comin’ up in here with that jug-o-wine?!” 

After getting my wine snooty-side under control, I made my way closer to the jug to get a good look at its rather simple and generic looking label – it read, “Wine Garage Red Wine Blend B1″.  I’ve seen and tried a lot of jug wines, but this jug was completely foreign to me.  Besides that, what did the “Red Wine Blend B1” actually mean?

After doing a little Google search on Wine Garage, here’s what I discovered about this jug wine that sat squarely in the middle of our dinner table just waiting to be opened:

The Wine Garage store is actually housed in a former gas station/tire shop just south of Calistoga, California’s main street. The Wine Garage has approximately 200 different wines available for purchase.  They seek out and personally visit small wineries throughout the Napa Valley and other wine regions in California such as Lodi, Paso Robles, Amador and Mendocino looking for what they feel are hidden gems.  Another interesting snippet, is that they actually “pump” the wines that go into their half-gallon glass jugs with specially designed gas station nozzles.

The Wine Garage offers up two different jug blends to choose from:
1. The “B1”, (the one we tried) is a Bordeaux-style blend of Cabernet, Carmenere, Merlot and Petite Verdot.

2. The other jug is a Rhone-style blend consisting of Syrah, Zinfandel, Grenache, Mourvedre and Petite Syrah.

I’m gonna be completely honest and straight to the point about the “B1” red blend:  There were four of us that night that drank this jug to its last glorious drop, and out of the four only one said, “it’s ok”, while the rest of us thought it was hands down the best damn jug wine that we ever had the pleasure of sucking down.

Grab a jug of Wine Garage, round up a few close friends, and reminisce about the good old blotto days when the jug of choice was Riunite Lambrusco!  In the immortal words of Chad Ocho Cinco, “Just cause you got money, don’t mean you gotta spend it!”

WineLife365 Rating: 3-Stars

From: California
Price: $29.99 (1/2 gallon!)

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From:  California

Price:  $9.99

Bare-knuckle boxing is recognized as the first form of boxing, and it involved two competitors fighting one another without the use of boxing gloves or any other padding on their hands.  During this era in boxing, John Lawrence Sullivan, who was nicknamed the “Boston Strong Boy”, was considered by most historians and boxing experts as the first ever US Heavyweight Champion of “gloved” boxing and also as the last heavyweight champion of “bare-knuckle” boxing.

Seeing this John Sullivan inspired label enticed me to go ahead and purchase it to taste what this “Heavyweight Red” was made of.  After only a few seconds into the first round with this supposed heavyweight, that is comprised of 76% Cabernet Sauvignon, 14% Syrah and 10%, I quickly found out that this heavyweight had nothing more than a “glass chin”, in boxing speak.

Light, fruity, weak and hollow on its follow through makes this red blend a more formidable match in the Lightweight Division.  Unfortunately, in the 750ml and under $10 category this “Heavyweight Red” just doesn’t compete!

I award the “Heavyweight Red” 1 Star out of 4.  There’s a lot more blood, sweat and tears that need to go inside this bottle in order for it to live up to the legendary heavyweight status of its label .  

WineLife365 Rating: 1-Star 

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From: Argentina
Price: $8.99

This wine review was a tough one for me.  I personally love many different styles of red wines.  However, one group of reds that I’ve never been able to totally embrace as a whole is Italian Chianti.  The reason for my love-hate relationship with this style of wine is that I find many share a dominating and strong characteristic that I like to describe as an astringent, “alcoholly” aftertaste.  In other words, a peculiar burning or hot sensation that comes out on the back end of tasting these wines makes me feel as if I just swallowed rubbing alcohol or jet fuel, and leave me feeling like I should be calling 911 to get treated for alcohol poisoning.  But being the wine trooper and occasional “flame swallower” that I am, I’m not about to let a few “alcoholly” experiences stop me from finding a nice Chianti to pair with a plate of fava beans. 

Which leads me to a rather interesting experience that I recently had with one 2004 Trumpeter Malbec-Syrah.  This wine had me guessing from the first sip whether or not I was drinking an “agreeable” Italian Chianti or something that just tasted like Chianti that I really liked.  Here’s a wine experiment that I’d love for you to try – grab a Chianti Classico from Italy priced under $20.  Then grab a bottle of this Trumpeter Malbec-Syrah at under $10.  Taste them both blindfolded.  I’ll bet that your taste buds think that they’re both from Italy.  The 2004 Trumpeter Malbec-Syrah tasted like an “Argentinean Chianti Classico” to me, but without the astringent, “alcoholly” aftertaste.

All in all, I really enjoyed the oddity of this Italian tasting, Argentinean-born, red blend of 50% Malbec and 50% Syrah.  It had good ripe fruit, integrated very nicely with oak, to give it a full and rounded taste both on the front and backend.  It certainly wasn’t at all what I was expecting to taste, and at under $10 bucks a bottle there’s a lot to like about this wine.  If you enjoy Italian Chianti, I think that you’ll enjoy the value that this wine brings to the table.  Give it a shot one night with a plate of traditional spaghetti and meatballs (or even some fava beans) and taste for yourself.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

3 Stars out of 4.

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From: California

Price: $10.99

I, like so many other people, have truly enjoyed watching many of the cinematic masterpieces that Mr. Francis Ford Coppola has directed, produced or written over the years.  Some might argue that movies like the Godfather Trilogy, The Outsiders, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and Apocalypse Now are some of the greatest films ever made.

Sadly however, it only took two sips of the 2006 Rosso blended red table wine for my taste buds to admit that this public offering was not going to be one of Mr. Coppola’s finer pieces of work.  

The 2006 Francis Ford Coppola Rosso is comprised of 48% Zinfandel, 27% Syrah, and 25% Cabernet Sauvignon.  It delivers a rather disappointing and mediocre script of cherry-vanilla flavors.  To my palate, this wine seemed to lack solid fruit concentration and gusto to take it from being a snore to making it yet another Francis Ford Coppola hit.

Oddly enough, I did however find this wine to be more enjoyable on the second night when I paired it with a thick juicy piece of steak.  And based on how it tasted with the steak, I’d imagine that this red would probably deliver a decent performance with a plate of spaghetti and meatballs. 

In the end though, the 2006 Francis Ford Coppola Rosso was a dud for me.  It just didn’t  “make me an offer that I couldn’t refuse” to award it a higher WineLife365 rating than 2 stars out of 4 – even after two nights of convincing.

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From: France

Price: $12.99

I have two words to describe this Kermit Lynch selection – classic and delicious.  It’s been a while since I was last wowed by a French red wine costing less than $15 dollars.  I’ll be honest with you; many that I’ve tried so far in 2009 have tasted a little too “au-natural” for my liking.  Most have had a “barn-yardy” quality about them that has made me conjure up images of chicken coops, horse stalls, and bails of hay.

However, this Cotes du Rhone discovery from famed importer Kermit Lynch is a terrific display of how great a wine can taste when given the opportunity to showcase its true “terroir” (a fancy French term meaning the special characteristics that geography has bestowed upon a wine). 

The 2007 Kermit Lynch Cotes du Rhone red wine is a delicious, natural tasting blend of Grenache, Syrah, Cinsault and Mourvedre, with just the right amount of cracked black pepper and other spices to make it very interesting on the palate.  The other element that I loved about this wine is that it leaves the barn on the farm where it belongs – if you catch my drift.   This red Cotes du Rhone also demonstrates old world charm at an outstanding value to consumers looking for the “real thing” in an everyday red wine.

I give the 2007 Kermit Lynch Cotes du Rhone 3 stars out of 4.  It won’t completely knock your socks off, but it will give you a glimpse into how terrific “old world” winemaking can taste at a price level that many “new world” winemakers find difficult to produce. 

If you’re not able to find this particular wine, I would highly encourage you to try another Kermit Lynch selection or to talk with your wine merchant.  Kermit Lynch has a great reputation and a real knack for finding undiscovered gems in France.

WineLife365 Rating: 3-Star

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