I was disappointed. It was very out of balance - very much over the top vanilla on both the nose and in the mouth. Some berry flavors as well. No tannins, little to no acid. Flabby and one-dimensional.
For what it’s worth, I’ve had this one before, and I don’t remember it being like this. Maybe the earlier vintages were better? I don’t know, I don’t have any tasting notes for it. But I won’t be buying any more of it. As it is, we didn’t finish the bottle we bought.
Interesting that psycat90 mentions the aroma of cola. In my experience, cola = vanilla, and vanilla is very much what we got out of this wine. Maybe the 2005 goes overboard whereas the 04 was more balanced? For what it’s worth I had my mother try some tonight (we opened it Wednesday, had it vacu-vinned since then) and she go the vanilla thing right away.
Bevmo got the 2005 vintage in this morning. $7.99. Rinsed out the Reidel and poured a glass.
Berries jump out at you on the nose. Very fresh and fruity. The first taste is oh so very smooth. I can taste the zin in the mix, but it is tamed by the merlot. But the zin also gives the merlot some character. Central body is all cab. Nice, light tang in the finish. This wine would go well with all sorts of dishes, but I think it would get lost in anything robust. It won’t clash with your cheeseburgers, but would also fit most pasta and beef dishes.
Where I am coming from: I love Zins. I want wines with character. Merlot bores me. I love Syrah, especially the big ones out of Fess Parker. Italian wines are my latest obsession, especially the versions coming out of California. If I had one wine to drink for the rest of my life, it would either be a Barbera or Mandolina’s Toccata (45% Cab, 35% angiovese, 10% Freisa, 5% Cab Franc, 5% Merlot) out of the Santa Ynez Valley.
The vintage on the shelf at my favorite wineshop was the 2003. I drank a glass while cooking, and then another with a plate of pasta. I found this wine to be sweeter than I usually drink and very fruity, with a not altogether unpleasant aftertaste of grape jelly. Mrs longhair liked this wine more than I did. I will keep a bottle or two of this on hand for her. If you liked this wine, try some Red Truck from Cline.
As I posted previously, we opened our bottle (the 2005) earlier this week and finished it off. I went to the liquor store last night to pick up another and they were all out. Fortunately, Haskells is pretty good about moving inventory between stores, so they should have some more in hand tomorrow, and I’ll be able to try it again with added perspective.
My notes from the initial tasting earlier this week: “Smooth, slightly sweet, very drinkable, acidity reminds me of tart apple.” In thinking back, I noticed (but did not write down) that there’s a distinctly fruity quality, hinting of raspberry. It definitely tastes red.
I’m new to drinking wine (in fact, drinking wine at all was my anniversary present to **Dangerosa **last year), so I don’t have a wide range of experiences to compare it to. I think the blend of three varietals gives it a nice complexity that’s less common (in my limited experience) in single-varietal wines.
The zinfandel was the first thing that was apparent to me…in the nose and initially on the tongue. The longer I let the wine linger, the more cabernet I tasted. Everything was wrapped in a sweetness that became cloying to me by the second glass though.
I agree with Athena, that the word flabby comes to mind. Confused is the other word that comes to my mind. This wine has the jamminess of a zin, without the spiciness. It has the body of a cab, but without the structure or acidity. Some of these missing characteristics might have helped it to overcome the sweetness that ultimately made the wine unsatisfying to me.
I’m clearly not the wino some of you guys are. But I appreciate your more nuanced and educated opinions, as it helps me clarify my own.
My bottle was a 2005, which cost $13.99 at Harris Teeter (!) (The “!” is not that I think that’s high for wine, but it’s high compared to what most of you paid.)
I liked it. I could definitely taste the berry, and I liked the complexity that the mix gave it… Being relatively new to reds, “full-bodied” really tannic reds can taste too, I don’t know, assertive I guess, for my palate. This was nice.
Having red the rest of your posts: After being prompted, I can definitely smell/taste the vanilla/cola. I guess I don’t know what you mean by “out of balance;” it doesn’t taste overly vanilla to me, but then mine is a definitely uneducated palate.
I quite liked it. I think it’s an inoffensive red that would please a wide variety of drinkers, for example, good to serve for a party where you don’t really know the tastes or sophistication of your guests.
By “out of balance” I meant that all I could taste was sweetness. There was very little acidity and/or tannin to offset the sugar. Add in the vanilla, and it was almost like cotton candy to me.
I completely agree with that statement. I’ve found that people who don’t regularly drink red wine are often put off by tannins or overly acidic wine; this one is soft and round and sweet, and would probably be a crowd-pleaser if the crowd wasn’t full of wine geeks.
I think this may be the first red wine I’ve had that I actually liked, rather than endured. I liked the sweetness. I have a nearly astronomical sweet tooth, and strongly dislike unsweetened drinks of any type. Dry or acidic wines also activate my acid reflux and give me instant and unbearable heartburn, so even if I liked the taste of them (which I don’t) I wouldn’t be able to drink them.
This one… wow! I didn’t wince when I sipped it, like I usually do with reds. I don’t pretend or want to be a wine snob and I fully admit that my taste runs to the cheaper wines… they tend to be sweeter. I’m sure that my list of favorite wines would horrify a really sophisticated wine drinker, but I’m not out to impress anyone, just enjoy a glass of something nice
Anyway, I enjoyed this, and am very glad I ran across this thread. I’ll be buying another bottle to keep on hand for sure. Anyone else who liked this and who may know of other wines with similar qualities: please recommend them…?
OK, stupid question of the evening from a total wine doofus: should I let this sit in the opened bottle for a while before drinking it? I hear that’s what you’re “supposed to do” with reds, but I thought it was to clear off the biting tannin taste, and it sounds like this wine doesn’t have much of that to begin with (which is a good thing in my book!)
I won’t be drinking mine for a couple of days because I’m still sick and everything tastes funny (even the brand new ice cream tasted rancid to me tonight, but everyone else said it was fine). I want to give it a fair shot.
The hubby and I drink it straight from the bottle, FWIW.
And our vintage (silly me, forgot to note it before!) was the 2005. I’ve also had the 2004, and I’d say the 2004 is slightly more drinkable than the 2005, though I enjoyed both.
Some wines benefit from being allowed to “breath” for a while. This is accomplished either by opening the wine and letting it sit before you drink it, or opening it and pouring it into a decanter. Decanting allows even more of the wine come in contact with the air, so it speeds up the process a bit. Decanting also allows you to remove any sediment from the bottom of the bottle.
So what wines benefit from this? Just a few. In general, 90% of the wines out there are designed to be drunk immediately upon opening. As you mention, some wines may be overly tannic, and letting them sit for a while will let the tannins mellow. Sediment only occurs in older wines, so that’s usually not an issue.
Bottom line: unless you are buying some fancy old wine, don’t worry about decanting/breathing. (There’s exceptions to this, but there’s no easy rule of thumb about them.)
That said, very few wines don’t change at all if you let them sit. It’s interesting to pay attention to that change - even if it’s just a few hours after you open them. If you have leftover wine, try it the next day and note any changes. There, now you’re firmly set on the road to winegeekdom.
Awesome! So great to assimilate people to the wine cause.
As for others, try Jest Red and Little Black Dress.
If you want to expand a little bit more, try a Beaujolais or Beaujolais Nouveau. Not quite as sweet as the others, but definitely a wine that a lot of non-red-wine drinkers have enjoyed.
I found the sweetness to be maple-y. Since I don’t mind sweet wines, and prefer them to dry wines, this was a good thing, but mape would be overpowering - this is a wine I’d bring to a party or drink at home - but I wouldn’t serve it to my wine snob brother in law (who pours other people’s bottles down the drain as “gone bad” if he doesn’t like them).
Very fruity - drinkable and approachable. There are two kinds of reds we have - the kind where we finish the bottle in a night and look for more, and the kind that the bottle lasts the week - and is often better to us for having forgotten and left it open on the counter overnight. This was the first type.
It isn’t a complex five note chord, but it isn’t a single note either.
Similar wine: Kestrel Raptor Red - which is a Bordeaux-style blend.
This is precisely the sort of wine snob I am completely determined to never become. If I thought the choices were to be this guy or never drink wine again, I’d stick with beer.
I can see deciding you don’t like a particular wine and not drinking it (but not making a big deal out of it, either.) But to take a bottle of wine that someone else brought and pour it down the drain?!? Has he done that more than a few times?
Granted, wine definitely goes bad sometimes… an estimated 5% of bottles are corked. But it should be few and far between that they get poured down the drain!
Yep, more than once. We just have him provide the wine now - which is usually too dry for my taste and most of the family. The real shame is he’s managed to intimidate my Dad with this behavior - who grew up in an Italian family drinking homemade wine with nearly ever dinner - wine the way I believe it was originally meant to be enjoyed. My dad is one of those “hey, I paid $12 for that bottle.” I’ve had corked wine - it was undrinkable. My brother in law has dumped wines that I would have been perfectly content to drink.
Fortunately, Haskells is pretty good about moving inventory between stores, so they should have some more in hand tomorrow, and I’ll be able to try it again with added perspective.
But I appreciate your more nuanced and educated opinions, as it helps me clarify my own.