Thursday, January 8, 2009

3 wines for $12

Well, for the past few months I have been eying a Chilean wine at Meijers Superstore called Gato Negro - imported by San Pedro. If you have not heard of this brand before I believe they are trying to market themselves as the Chilean version of Yellow Tail. And retailing for 4 dollars a bottle the question is, "Can you buy a decent wine for such a cheap price?" The answer according to our tasters is No.

We started off with the Sauvignon Blanc. The bottle claimed the this wine had a pale straw color, with a nose smelling of tropical fruit. What they forgot to mention though, was the relentless onslaught of acid that accompanied. This wine had so much acid that it almost tasted salty. Most of the tasters could not get over this acidic assault on their pallets, with one person commenting that it tasted like spoiled fruit. Not a good quality in wine. Saved yourself the trouble and do not purchase the Sauvignon Blanc!

Next, we tried the Chardonnay. The color was a tinted clear color, much lighter in appearance than most Chardonnays. Sarah commented that it looked like white grape juice. The aroma was somewhat interesting with banana, pineapple and some hints in of apple. Taste wise the Chardonnay took a turn for the worst. Although it did have a good mouth feel and a hit of pear, which was interesting, only 2 drinkers thought it was O.K., while most felt that it tasted sour with some very unappealing acidity like the Sauvignon Blanc.

Finally, we finished with the Cabernet. On the nose the tasters said they got some caramel, black fruit, and plum notes. The taste did not do the aroma any justice however. Nathan said it down-right sucked, while Evan said the wine was too one dimensional. Sarah was a little nicer saying that she tasted some spicy berry components. Cassie wondered if the makers were purposely going for a sulphur/mildew taste.

Overall, the group consensus would have been that we would have been much better off buying one wine for 12 dollars than 3 poor ones.
If, after read this you would still like to try this wine it can be found at any Meijers, usually on the bottom shelf of the import section.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

New Layout

Decided to change things up a little bit. I think leaving out the huge picture at the top makes the page flow a little better.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Drinking some Argentinian Wine


Last night Cassie and I, along with four of our friends, tasted a 2007 Cab/Malbec blend from the Carlos Basso collection called Dos Fincas. My Spanish is terrible - quant0 es - but I'm guessing that "Dos Fincas" has something to do with the growers use of grapes from two (dos) different vineyards (fincas) in producing this wine.
The group had some differing opinions when it came to the nose of the wine. Nathan thought it was a little woody with a whisper of orange peel, while Evan and Sarah got a little solvent and dark fruit smell respectively. But overall, the group was in agreement that the predominant aroma, oak, was very overpowering.
The taste, like the nose, seemed some what over oaked for the group's pallets. Although the wine did have a touch of Acidity, which was pleasantly surprising and some nice dark fruit up front, the mid-pallet and the finish seemed very watery and over done. The group also complained of too much alcohol coming through. After about a half hour of drinking the wine did open up a little more though, helping to soften the finish.
This wine retails for around $13, and even though Wine Enthusiast gave the two previous vintages "best buy" awards, nobody was impressed by this effort. We give it a collective pass.
Want to know more about this wine? https://www.southernwinegroup.com/

Monday, December 15, 2008

Intial Thoughts

This is my first blog entry. I have been thinking about starting some kind of online rating system surrounding wine, scotch, bourbon, and maybe beer. I would like to focus on the "EV" or entertainment value of wine, and integrate my opinions with my visitors opinions in order to get a community rating of a particular adult beverage. I know that some sites right now are rating wines in a similar way, but I think they are somewhat boring and uninspired. I also want to limit my focus to a few wines a week, and really get some good chatter going about each particular group of wines; instead of having a huge database of meaningless numbered ratings.
For right now I am going to use this blog to get ideas from friends and family. In the coming weeks I will try to setup my first "official" wine evaluation and get your feedback.