Cotes Du Rhone par Kermit Lynch 2007

Cotes Du Rhone par Kermit Lynch 2007

Every time I hit the wine store I try to pick up a bottle from France- a special bottle, or one with a wine spectator review- or a name or place I recognize from my travels. I don't tend to cellar much wine (although I did find a case I forgot about- as soon as my wife allows me to have some that is) so most of the wines I grab are for immediate consumption.

This bottle was excellent. Best of all- and I don't typically do this- I finished the whole bottle in one evening. Better than that? No hangover. I don't know if it was the low sulfites or just luck, but this was an excellent wine and it went down oh-so-smooth.

I'll have to pick up a few bottles to keep around for folks that don't like reds- or are sensitive to them. In fact, I'll follow up after MAO tries some to see if she could drink it.

Priced at $7.99 - excellent value.

Castle Rock 2008 Pinot Noir

Castle Rock 2008 Pinot Noir

Castle Rock delivers another excellent wine. Opened and with no airing it was delicious, smooth, full of flavours and not a bit harsh anywhere. The bottle also kept for several days of small wine tastes as I cooked various meals.

I don't think I've ever had a bad bottle from Castle Rock- and this is no exception.

I'm skipping the usual scores as I'm in a hurry to get some posts made, but you can't go wrong here.

9.99$ - very fairly priced.

Jacob's Creek 2005 Reserve Shiraz

Jacob's Creek 2005 Reserve Shiraz

An excellent vintage from Jacob's Creek- flavors of plum and pepper (of course, I cooked pepper corn steak, so I may be biased).

When I first opened the bottle I felt it was a bit harsh on the palate but after 30 minutes of breathing it was just fine.

The wine paired well with dark chocolate- so that makes medium rare steak, potatoes, and chocolate as all acceptable pairings.

The nose is a bit short- not as aromatic as I'd hope, but the taste is made up for the lingering smooth finish.

Priced at only 6.99 this wine should be in your cellar for pulling out at short notice.

Nugan Estates Vision Riverina 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon - Australia

Nugan Estates Vision Riverina 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon - Australia

This wine is a bit hard to review for one simple reason: I know it's a fake.

Lets step back some. I make my own wine. As such and when I started I played around with loads of additives, thinking it made my wines better. They didn't, or they did, or they sometimes did and then stopped- but I tried alot of different things. I still have them around- tools to make wine better, or improve on something, etc.

One of those items is 'tannins'. Tannins can be purchased, say, from Scott Labs, and there are a couple different types. These tannins are not the same ones you find in your typical wine store- no, these are very delicious tannins and priced accordingly. A little goes a very long way.

One of these tannins, the "Grand Cru" etc was a purchase from an online pal, who kindly sold me a kg or so for use. And use I did- I fluffed out all my reds, and some whites, to the point I recognize the taste.

It's that same taste that I realized I was slugging down in this wine. The Nugan Estates 2008 Cab Sauv has the exact same taste as a wine fortified with 'fake' tannins.

Now I suppose you could have two wines with the exact same flavor- and I suppose that Nugan Estates could have the exact grapes being used to make the tannins later sold for flavoring under-ripened harvests. If that's the case, this wine still fails for the simple reason- it has nothing unique in it. The wine tastes 'fake' and forced- too sweet to the mouth.

As advertised on the bottle, it contains "Silky smoothe tannins" - just what you'd expect if you were buying your tannins by the kilo.

The Nugan Estates is priced at 12.99 - an incredibly expensive table wine for it's quality and best left on the shelf.

Rex-Goliath 47 - Shiraz - Great choice.

I've had a few other wines in the intervening days but I'm trying this one right now, so it gets reviewed.

The aroma / nose of the wine is very strong- most shiraz wines are- but this was pleasant.
The taste caught me by surprise- fairly sweet, for a red- a well balanced sweetness with a bit of black currant, blackberry- excellent mouth feel. Now, personally I am against licorice - and this wine has none, so it's even better in that regard.
The finish of the wine is very nice- lingers on the tongue and back of the throat. The aromas from the sip also are still, well, aromatic, with a final taste of dryness.

Aroma: 2
Taste: 7
Finish: 6/7

At a price of $7.99 from West Ridge Liquor this is a good choice.

:edit: The next day I opened the little less than 3/4 of a bottle to have with a steak. The wine had definitely picked up an acetic acid taste to it over night from the extra air. While no wine should be judged harshly for left unfinished, this one was a little rapid on that- I had used one of the vacuum pumps to seal it, as I do with all wines. Something to be aware of.

Tisdale Cabernet Sauvignon

I'll start off the wine review with this ... winner. At $3.99 a bottle when I walked into West Ridge Liquor I knew I wasn't going to find a strong winner, but I had hoped it might be a little flashy, perhaps a bit strong in one characteristic.

Boy was I wrong.

The shopping carts full of this wine should have been the hint, but I just didn't take it.

Scores: modified from the beer tasting, first number is 0-3 and is appearance, aroma/smell, etc. Second number is 0-9, and is taste taste taste. Third number is 0-9, and is 'finish', which could entail pretty much everything else after that. A wine too chilled might fair poorly on aroma, but then be re-tried later (which is what I do with beers as well).

Aroma: 0
Taste: 2
Finish: 2

No aroma, varietal or otherwise, to speak of. Color was lackluster in the glass.
The taste was not unpleasant but just lacked, like every other aspect, anything. It tasted as if it were a 'thin' wine- one that had had water to fineness it's fermentation (say, recover from a stuck, etc). There were no tannins to speak of.
Finish: Nothing doing. No spreading flavour, not a single smidge of varietal pepper left on the back of your tongue.

As a mulled wine this might work- but even at that price you're better off grabbing jug wines.

Opinion: Skip it.

Pregnant Again....

....

You know how they say having a kid changes your life? It does. Want to know what changes it more? Getting ready to have a second one :)

Evelyn is now almost 17 months old. It's been a wild roller coaster of a ride- and all of it good (except for getting tubes).

As we prepare to welcome her little brother / sister into the world (we don't know yet) we're struggling with finding a new house, clearing out all the junk, and all the stuff you'd expect when your family grows.

In addition for the last several months we've been facing layoffs at work. About a week ago we found out I'm OK, for now- even though there has been repeated notes from our President about 'phases'. Oh well, can't live in fear your whole life (although lately it sure feels like that).

Expect to see more posts as time permits (which hasn't been alot). I'm going to start posting wine photos and reviews- sorry Liz can't drink it, but at least I can and spare her the agony of bad bottles of wine.