Red Dust Shiraz 2002
Price: $10 bottle
Type: Shiraz
Cork: plain Jane natural
Rating: 6
This tastes like wine. That's it. No more, no less. I don't detect any cherry or asphalt or coffee or any of the other little flavors one is supposed to ferret out sip by sip. Instead, this is a plain, unpretentious red wine which tastes like nothing more than wine. If you're looking for an average shiraz, this will do fine. I've drunk far worse.
I picked this one up because I liked the name. I'm all over the new commercial space programs, so a Mars themed wine tickled my fancy. Okay, they were probably referring to the red dust of the Australian outback, but I am free to interpret it my own way. Regardless, the exciting name makes its unexciting cork and uninspiring flavor a bit of a disappointment. I'll finish the bottle, and I certainly won't turn it down if anyone offers me a glass, but it's not one I'll actively seek out again.
Price: $10 bottle
Type: blend
Cork: stelvin screw cap
Rating: 9
Oh, my! I understand why Kevin Currie found this wine so difficult to describe. I also have to agree wholeheartedly with his suggestion you just buy a bottle and discover it for yourself. It's well worth your ten dollars.
First, this starts with a rich, bold aroma. When I smell a wine this strong, I expect an equally strong aftertaste. Instead, Big House Red finishes smooth and easy, without any dry bitterness. My husband was stunned. With every sip, he was braced for a strong bitter aftertaste which never came. I don't know how they did it. A richly dark wine with this much flavor normally has a serious kick at the end. The smooth finish takes some getting used to.
The flavor itself is a real delight for the tongue. I don't know where to begin describing it. The wine is sweet but not cloying, tangy but not tart. There's so much in there I don't know where to start. All I can say for sure is I like it.
I wish I could offer a better analysis, but there's a lot going on in this wine. Big House Red is a blend of 8 different grapes. The result is a, well - Big - flavor which defies easy categorization.
One incidental thing I really love is the easy to open stelvin screw cap closure. I understand the nostalgic appeal of corks, even artificial ones, but the security of having a reliably good wine (no cork taint!) makes the screw cap well worth it.
I will definitely buy this wine again. In fact, I want to try their Big House White as well.
Pascual Toso Malbec 2002
Price: $10 bottle
Type: Malbec
Cork: conservatively decorated natural
Rating: 8
I went looking for the Medrano Malbec recommended by Kevin Currie, but couldn't find it at our local liquor barn. Since Louisville suffered from record setting snowfall yesterday, I wasn't willing to risk back roads. Instead, I picked a mystery Malbec. I wasn't disappointed.
The Spanish Pascual Toso has an incredibly rich and complex scent - very strong, very inviting, more than a little fruity. This makes the notably milder flavor something of a surprise. It's soft, more subtle than the aroma suggests. This wouldn't be a bad wine for people who are new to drinking reds.
I think it has a surprisingly strong cherry flavor, but perhaps I've been drinking too much wine lately and now think I taste flavors that are not really there. It's not too tannic. I hate that just-licked-a-cat dry feeling the tongue gets with the driest wines. This wine glides smoothly over the tongue. I also like its mild aftertaste.
Based on my dinner tonight, I'd recommend this wine (or another Malbec if this one isn't available) with red meat, strong spices, or both.
Price: $11 bottle
Type: Pinot Noir
Cork: attractive tan artificial with logo and icon
Rating: 9
Golly. What a tasty wine! Now remember, my goal is a glass a night. However, like the Thirsty Lizard White Shiraz, this is a bottle my husband and I finished in a couple of hours, not a couple of days.
I am especially pleased because this is another wine chosen entirely by its pretty label. The last one from that experiment yielded disappointing results, so I tried not to get my hopes too high for this one.
The nose is somewhat weak, which led me to expect a watery wine. Instead, it has a delightfully rich taste, making up for the weak aroma. The smooth flavor rolls over the tongue, not too acidic, not too tart. I tasted strong notes of cherry, making me think this would pair well with fruit or a meat seasoned wtih fruit. The aftertaste is well balanced - not too bitter, not too sweet. This smooth wine just begs to be drunk in front of a roaring winter fire.
Since we had a hearty soup for dinner tonight, I don't know if this one will improve alongside beef. I am pleased to find it is a red I enjoy drinking on its own, though, with no need for meat.
Why I hate natural corks
I was cheerfully prepared to review
Chrisman Mill's award winning Sweet Jessamine Rose. I've enjoyed this sweet after-dinner wine before and remember it being well worth buying more than once. I can't tell you anything more about it, though, because this time my brand new bottle was tainted with the evil of
cork taint.
In case you've ever wondered, the whole purpose of smelling the cork is to make sure it hasn't rotted. If you nod and tell the sommelier to pour, you're accepting responsibility even if the wine is moldier than a bachelor's carpet. On a white or blush wine, you can actually see the rot - faint discolored patches of a blue-green that look disturbingly like mold. If your cork has rot, just pour the bottle down the sink, no matter what you paid for it. You can't even use it for vinegar.
I've read anywhere between 5 - 15% of all wines bottled with natural corks will rot by the time they reach the consumer. I'd say I lose about one out of every ten bottles to it.
As far as I am concerned, there is absolutely no reason for this. Artificial corks are superior in every measurable way except tradition. C'mon folks - tradition isn't perfect. The Romans lined their wine amphorae with tar - no kidding, tar! - in order to preserve wine for shipping. They also said it improved the flavor. And hey, it was traditional. As for later generations, it made complete sense for Europeans to stop bottles with a soft wood. It really was the best thing available, and was a heck of an improvement over tar. Time marches on. The industrial revolution brought about a whole new set of preservative technologies, ones where you don't have to lose any bottles to cork rot. I'll take consistently good wine over poisonous tradition any day.
This is clearly catching on among some producers. I'd say about a quarter of the wines I drink now have artificial corks. A number of Australian producers have gone one further, introducing Stelvin
screw caps on $100 bottles of wine. These new screw tops are apparently much more expensive than traditional corks, but are also airtight and guarantee you'll get a quality bottle every time. Considering people are unlikely to buy a second $100 bottle of wine if the first is awful, they're willing to risk a few raised eyebrows in exchange for consistent quality.
As a consumer, I'd love to see all producers move to artificial closures. Until then, I'll keep noting who uses natural cork and how many of those bottles I have to pour down the drain. I see no reason to pay an extra 10% premium on the cost of wine lost to unnecessary cork rot.
Price: $10 bottle
Type: Tempranillo
Cork: natural and uninspired
Rating: 7
I freely admit I'm partial to Tempranillo wines, so it was no surprise that I liked this one. Honestly, the only bad bottle of Tempranillo I've had cost $4 for a bottle. Hmm...I wonder if that had anything to do with the quality?
This ruby red wine has a moderate aroma, pleasant but not overwhelming. It's very smooth on the tongue, with a pleasantly sweet but slightly watery foretaste. It really shines when it hits the back of the tongue, deepening in flavor then mellowing for the aftertaste.
Like most Tempranillo's, this one paired well with spicy food, in this case an Indian dinner. This is one I'll probably pick up again.
Price: $11 bottle
Type: Pinot Gris
Cork: elegant marbled grey artificial with name, phone, and website printed on it
Rating: 4
I find this plain white wine to be perfectly average. It's not one I'll seek out again. The slightly sweet aroma is very faint. The flavor itself is so watery you don't notice anything until the bitter aftertaste hits. It might as well not even be in your mouth.
So why am I giving it a 4 instead of a 1? Because while it's not good, it's also not actively bad. I've had wine that tasted like vinegar. This would make a slightly below average $3 glass of House White at your local Italian chain restaurant. It's inoffensive enough to get you drunk, if that's your goal for the evening. At $11 a bottle, I find it too pricy to use as a wine cooler base, though I might do so anyway just to finish off the bottle.
If you know someone who doesn't like the taste of wine, this actually might be a good selection. Honestly, until the aftertaste hits, the flavor is just one step removed from water.
Ramon Bilbao Roija Tempranillo
Price: $12 bottle retail - $6.50/glass restaurant
Type: Tempranillo
Cork: unknown
Rating: 9
First, if you live anywhere near Louisville, KY, you absolutely must visit
Havana Rumba. Every single thing I've tried there, from appetizers to lunch sandwiches to entrees to dessert, has been absolutely fabulous. You won't find anything like it in a chain restaurant.
Tonight, I decided to try a glass of their recommended Spanish Tempranillo with my Ropa Vieja. Oh, my! This was some very tasty wine. In fact, this is the first wine I've tried in a restaurant which I want to seek out in my local liquor stores.
It starts off with a rich aroma - strong enough not to be drowned out by the wonderful mingled scents of well spiced foods on the tables around us. The nose hinted of berries, with a strong followthrough of cherry when the wine hit the tongue.
This Tempranillo was very smooth, with a rich mouthfeel. The flavor was sweet without being cloying. The strong aftertaste balanced the sweetness with a slight hint of bitterness. Have I mentioned tasty yet? I really like this wine.
I gave this a 9 on it's own. I would be very content sipping this without food. That said, it gets even better when paired with beef. I suspect it'd perform just as well alongside any other spicy foods appropriate to a red wine. As part of a good meal, I'll up the rating to a 10. I love a wine that pairs well with spicy foods - one of the many reasons I'll be seeking this one out again in the future.
Wine recommendations from a real live wine seller!
I take back all I said about wine store workers. Kevin Currie sent me the following list of recommendations for good $10 wines. With his permission, I'm blogging them here so the next time I'm wandering a wine store desperately trying to remember the name of that Malbec I heard about, I'll know where to find it.
My name is Kevin Currie. I work at a small wine shop called "Wine Country" in Eldersburg, Maryland. As such, I like diddling on-line to find tasting notes and internet writings on wines. I perchanced upon a page you all are involved in questing for the "perfect wine under $10 dollars." It is a quest that I share (as wine shop workers can't always afford much more than that).
I am writing because I have some good recommendations of wines under $10 that I have lately tasted - wines that have become staples in my repitoire).
First, as we all know, there are infinite values to be had from Chile and Argentina. For two great wines under $10, try these:
San Estaban Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2003:
This is a really dark cab leaning towards the earthy, rather than fruity, notes. The nose suggests black pepper, a bit of tobacco, and a slight hint of smokiness. The palate: what you smell is what you get! Intense pepperiness, milder tobacco flavors, and a hint - just a hint - of 'tarriness,' make this a monster cab. The soft but lingering finish is mostly pepper - just the way I like it! A few of the tasting notes I've seen on this wine suggest flavors of black cherry but to be honest, I didn't get much of that. For those that like the earthier side of wines, this is a great Chilean Cabernet. The price, in our store at least, was 8.99
Medrano Malbec 2003:
As you may know, malbec is being billed as the 'next big thing' to replace shiraz (and sales of shiraz seem to have peaked maybe two years ago). To me, this is a good thing as malbecs have a similar fruitiness and soft tannic finish, while generally being more complex (IMO) than shiraz. This malbec, from Medrano, seems a bit 'darker' than some - offering not only dark cherry and blackberry, but has a mushroomy feel to it accented by a slight bit of oakiness. Good and complex wine listing (again, in our store) for 9.95.
Here are a few others from different areas that I've enjoyed:
Columbia Crest Shiraz 2003:
It might be gathered from my above recomendation that I don't particularly love shirazes. True; I like them okay, but don't love them. This shiraz, though, might be as close as I will ever get to loving a shiraz. Oh my goodness, the cherry! That is what immediately hits your nose on this wine! The fruit-forward and somewhat jammy pallate shos a nice amount of cherry and blackberry. The tasting notes on Columbia Crest's website suggests slight tones of chocolate and white pepper. Again, I must dissent with those tasting notes. This very full wine is 'fruit forward' from beginning to end. No wonder it was called one of the best values in Wine Spectator's annual list. Our store retails it for 8.99.
Bonny Doon Ca' del Solo Big House Red 2003:
Out of all the reds under $10 dollars that I've tasted, I can say unqualifiedly that this one is the biggest one I've tasted. That should really be no surprise when we realize that about 8 very unusual and big-flavored grapes are used in this blend: grenache, syrah, petite syran, malbec, sangiovese, barbere, etc. Unfortunately, describing this wine is really hard, as the flavor is so complex to my palate that is is difficult to pull the flavors apart. You know those kind of wines? The ones that are so big, with so many flavors pulling in different directions, that they are just hard to describe? The flavors I did detect were these: plum, coffee, black cherry, licorice, currant, and raspberry. I'm sure there are more in there; I just haven't gotten around to them yet! Anyhow, this is a really fun wine, and given its fullness and bigness, surprisingly easy to drink. As an added bonus (IMO) Bonny Doon wines come complete with screw caps! CHECK THIS ONE OUT! We retail it for 8.99 (but I've seen it carried in most places for 9.99).
Okay, so i think I got a little carried away and have rambled more than I would have liked. Hopefully, though, I have offered some decent suggestions that you find as pleasing as I do. I will be curious, should you get around to it, to hear your thoughts on these wines.
We still have a dozen bottles left from my birthday gift, so it'll be a few months before we're out wine shopping again. When we do, I'll be sure to check these out!
Price: $9/bottle retail - $5/glass restaurant
Type: Riesling
Cork: unknown
Rating: 7
I tried this wine at
Bristol Bar and Grille tonight. It was well paired with the Green Chilli Won-Tons appetizer.
I know they're not to everyone's taste, but I enjoy Rieslings. Their sweetness is refreshing with appetizers and light meals.
This Riesling had a very nice mouthfeel, but a pretty average flavor. The sweet start was followed by a slightly bitter aftertaste. All in all, I'd call it a pleasant flavor, good enough for restaurants with limited selections, but not a wine I'd actively seek out.
Price: around $8
Type: 55% Shiraz, 45% Cabernet blend
Cork: natural cork with printed logo and website address
Rating: 5
There are two types of 1 to 10 scales. On mine, 1 is vinegar, 5 is average, and 10 is elixr-of-the-gods. On other scales, 7 is average (a C), 8 is acceptable (a B), 9 is good (an A) and 10 is excellent.
If you ask me, why bother having a 1 to 10 scale if you're only going to use the 5 to 10 portion? When I give this a 5, I mean it's a perfectly average wine. It's not vinegar, but it's not one that'll inspire me to drain the whole bottle in one sitting.
I'm always embarrassed to ask wine store clerks to recommend a good $10 bottle of wine. They somehow always point out something half again the price, talk the $15 bottle down, and tell you if you want something drinkable, here's a decent $20 bottle, but it's nothing to write home about. When I say Thank You then go back to staring blankly at the $10 bottles, they scoff.
I always want to ask, "Listen, you superior ass, if you know this sucks why do you stock it?" But I know they'd haughtily respond, "Cheap drunks are our bread and butter." And I'd still buy a $10 bottle of wine.
So I spare myself the scorn and pick based on, well, cute labels. Little Boomey wasn't recommended by anyone, but it came home with me because the label is just adorable.
I was really optimistic when I opened the bottle. This Shiraz/Cabernet has a great nose. The rich scent might have biased me a bit, because I was very disappointed at the distinctly acidic taste. Worse yet, it's the kind of full tongue acidity (as opposed to a sort of biting aftertaste) that makes my tongue feel like I've been licking a cat.
The flavor is, well, pretty average. If you ask for "house red" at a restaurant, it might taste like this. It's not remarkably good or bad, it's just there.
That said, I suspect it will improve when paired with beef. I've noticed I prefer a tangier, more acidic red with beef and a lighter, more fruity red for lighter meals. Therefore, tomorrow night, it's beef for dinner. I'll post a second opinion of it as a pairing as opposed to a standalone wine. I don't expect it to miraculously transform from an average red into something droolworthy, but I'm willing to give it an openminded second chance.
___________
Okay, I lied. Beef wasn't on the menu last night. I didn't want to let it sit so long the wine turned to vinegar, so my husband and I finished off the bottle. It's still drinkable, but unremarkable.
Funky Llama Malbec 2003
Price: around $8
Type: Malbec
Cork: Adorable yellow plastic with the word "Funky" and a picture of a llama
Rating: 6
I'm not sure Funky Llama vineyards are still in production. According to their label, they should have a website up at
www.funkyllama.com, but that just got me a "no such address" error. A google search turned up half a dozen people who referenced the wine on their websites, but no one selling it. Funky Llama is either hiding from the world of technology or has gone the way of the Funky Dodo.
If they're gone, it's not a major loss for humanity. This is a solid, drinkable wine, but by no means remarkable. I certainly wouldn't turn down a glass if offered, but it's not worth spending an afternoon scouring your local wine stores.
Since this is the first Malbec wine I've known I was drinking, I feel safe in saying I'll certainly try Malbec's again. The core flavor seems very pleasant. I'm docking this example for details. First, it has a very faint aroma. Once drunk, I find it a little watery on the tongue. The finish is a shade more bitter than I like. It might be better with some red meat, but that wasn't on my dinner plate tonight.
Again, it isn't a BAD wine, just unremarkable. I'll certainly finish the bottle over the next couple nights, but unless I'm dying for another cute cork, I'll move on to other Malbec's.
My husband says he finds it rather nice. He ranks it a 7.
Price: around $10 per bottle
Type: White Shiraz
Cork: Plain Jane artificial
Rating: 10
Purchased: Jungle Jim's
I bought this Australian wine at
Jungle Jim's International Market a little over a month ago, so I don't remember the exact purchase price. I remember my husband and I were looking for $10 bottles of wine and this one had a disgustingly cute label, so if you tell me your local Wine-O-Rama is charging something far from that range, I'll be shocked. Then I might make an extra trip to Jungle Jim's in the near future.
So who cares where I got it, what about the wine?
This is my first experience with a White Shiraz. Like a White Zinfandel, this is a blush version of a red wine. As such, it's best served chilled.
I gave this a nine out of ten because - damn, it's tasty! Seriously, it's a good sipping wine, something you don't need a hearty medium-rare steak in front of you to appreciate. If you're looking for something to serve with appetizers, or just looking for something to sip without food, I'd recommend it.
It tastes pleasantly sweet as it hits the tongue, then finishes up with a hint of tannins as it glides smoothly down your throat. I think it tastes a little like berries, which means professional wine tasters probably say it tastes like asphalt. This actually embodies my mental picture of "fruity finish" whereas most bottles with that on the label make me really worry about the quality of fruit these reviewers eat.
I marked it from a 10 down to a 9 because the bottle is needlessly difficult to open. My foil cutter did no good (never a problem before) and I had to resort to a knife. Then, my nice rabbit corkscrew had a devil of a time penetrating the very dense artificial cork.
I quite like artificial corks. They eliminate the problem of cork rot, and if you've ever had a bottle of wine where the cork's gone bad, you know exactly how awful it can be. I would be thrilled if every vintner moved to artificial corks, so I consider this a plus. Well, as long as you can still get into the bottle.
That said, this is one I'll definitely pick up again.
