Wine Tasting 11: at the Vintage Cellar

Another week of wines at the Vintage Cellar, same rules as always. The wines are meant to be both cheap and well crafted to appeal to the college aged budget. All of the wines are Under $20 normally and under $10 on sale at the Vintage Cellar. This week featured a balance of reds and whites with unusual tastes and finished with a sweet desert wine type at the end.

As a note I will review each wine separately giving both my impression of the wine and the description from the winemaker themselves. Following that I will rate each wine on a scale [-2, 2]. Where:

-2: Bad wine, undrinkable

-1: Disliked, but drinkable

 0: Okay wine, neither disliked or liked

 1: Good wine, might buy

 2: Great wine, definitely will buy

Wine #74

Name: Dibon Cava

Variety: Xarel-lo, Macabeo, Parellada

Region: Catalonia

Country: Spain

Year: N/A

Price: $9.95

Winery review: 88 points – Wine Enthusiast

Made from 45% Macabeo, 25% Xarel-lo, 30% Parellada, the nose offers regal yeast and richness, while the palate has complexity to prop up apple, citrus and grapefruit flavors. Solid from front to back, with health and freshness. Cava, Catalan sparkling wine, is made mostly in the regions of Penedes, and the capital of cava is Sant Sadurni d´Anoia. Dibon is located in Vilafranca del Penedes, aproximately 20 Km from Sant Sadurni. The Dibon vineyard is in the process of becoming fully organic. It consists of 75 hectares of trellised vines 1000 feet above the Mediterranean Sea. 

My Review: 

Pear with slight floral components, on the nose. Sparkling seeming with light floral on the pallet. Overall light in body and taste.

Rating: 0

Wine #75

Name: Marques de Caceres

Variety: Verdejo

Region: Rueda

Country: Spain

Year: 2013

Price: $9.95

Winery review: 

Vivid straw colour. Fresh, clean and intense bouquet enlivened by notes of citrus fruit with a depth of pears and apples. Deliciously fresh and full in the mouth where racy, focused flavours deliver notes of minerals, lemon rind and green apples. Good length and a refreshing finish. Has all the character of the best from its appellation.

My Review: 

Slight fruit on the nose, with some hints of floral components. The fruit is light like pear and apple and the taste is heavy in body and lacking in acid. Wine tastes flabby and not that interesting.

Rating: -1.0

Wine #76

Name: Breca Tovana

Variety: Old Vine Garnacha

Region: Munebrega

Country: Spain

Year: 2013

Price: $8.95

Winery review: 

Gnarled vines, grown without irrigation, are a mainstay of Spain’s winemaking tradition and produce small clusters of perfectly ripe Garnacha grapes. Aromas of blackberries, plums, and cherries fill the glass and develop into luscious flavors of black stone fruit. Long, supple tannins complete this extraordinary wine.

My Review: 

Oaky smooth on the nose can tell that it has most likely been aged. The taste is of blackberries and cassis. Silky smooth body makes me think it may have been aged in french oak. Light in body with good slight blackberry cherry flavors with little in the way of tannins.

Rating: 0

Wine #77

Name: Rare Red

Variety: Zinfandel, Petite Syrah, Petite Verdot, Merlot

Region: California

Country: USA

Year: N/A

Price: $9.95

Winery review: 

A multi-vintage blend of Zinfandel, Petite Verdot, Petite Syrah, and Merlot that is full-bodied and fruit forward with a spicy and complex finish. This wine has been partially barrel aged for eight months in American and French oak.

My Review: 

Peppery on the nose with not much else going for it. Heavy in body but loads of spice with no room for any other flavors at all.

Rating: -1.5

Wine #78

Name: Jam Jar

Variety: Moscato 

Region: N/A

Country: South Africa

Year: 2014

Price: $8.95

Winery review: 

This charming, easy-drinking Moscato offers flavors of peach, apricot, lychee and orange blossom. A lively jolt of acidity keeps it fresh and fruity. Fancy enough for a special occasion toast, yet sweet-natured enough to enjoy every day, our bright and cheerful sweet wines are sure to capture your heart.

My Review: 

Some slight acidity to it and some orange and pear notes with a sweet syrupy body that is almost too sweet. Reminds me a little of the heavy syrup in canned fruits. Does not have a lot in complex taste and has an overall candiness to it.

Rating: -0.5

Wine Tasting 10: at the Vintage Cellar

Another week of wines at the Vintage Cellar, same rules as always. The wines are meant to be both cheap and well crafted to appeal to the college aged budget. All of the wines are Under $20 normally and under $10 on sale at the Vintage Cellar. This week featured a balance of reds and whites with unusual tastes and finished with a Riesling a sweet desert wine type at the end.

As a note I will review each wine separately giving both my impression of the wine and the description from the winemaker themselves. Following that I will rate each wine on a scale [-2, 2]. Where:
 

-2: Bad wine, undrinkable

-1: Disliked, but drinkable

 0: Okay wine, neither disliked or liked

 1: Good wine, might buy

 2: Great wine, definitely will buy

Wine #69

Name: Terre di Poggio Laude
Variety: Pecorino 
Region: Terre di Chieti
Country: Italy
Year: 2013
Price: $8.95

Winery review: 
Bright and savory, this floral scented Pecorino offers juicy tropical fruit and lemon drop sensations accented by notes of mint and thyme. The ripe fruit is balanced by brisk acidity that leaves the palate feeling cleansed and refreshed.  

My Review: 
Fruity with pear on the nose, this wine is a different beast when you drink. It acquires tastes like a creamy pear with a slight spice to the fruit. This wine also takes on some spice akin to a herbal floral components.


Rating: 1


Wine #70

Name: Chateau Suau Bordeaux Rose
Variety: Cabernet Sauvingion Rose
Region: Bordeaux
Country: France
Year: 2013
Price: $7.95

Winery review: 88 points - Stephen Tanzer

100% Cabernet Sauvignon. Light, lurid pink.  Tangerine, raspberry and white pepper on the fragrant nose.  Juicy and focused in the mouth, offering zesty red berry flavors with a refreshingly bitter edge.  Closes clean and tight, with lingering spiciness and a touch of orange zest.

My Review: 
Darker and fruitier on the nose with some darker raspberry and blackberry mixing pleasantly with some strawberry. On the pallet it displays some slightly spicy blackberry with some interesting fruity characteristics that are not fully definable.


Rating: 1.5

Wine #71

Name: Torre Castillo Cosecha 
Variety: Monastrell
Region: Jumilla
Country: Spain
Year: 2011
Price: $7.95

Winery review: 89 points - Stephen Tanzer

100% Monastrell, aged in American oak for four months. Bright ruby. Powerful, spicy aromas of dark berry preserves and lavender. Fleshy and round on the palate, offering spicy blackberry and blueberry flavors and gaining sweetness with air. Finishes smooth, long and slightly warm. "

My Review: 
Darker fruit, like a licorice and black raspberry on the nose. This wine becomes more tannic and dark fruit than I would like on the pallet but also takes on some leathery earthy characteristics that make the wine better, more interesting.Slightly spiced.


Rating: 0

Wine #72

Name: Tres Ojos, Calatayud 
Variety: Garnacha
Region: Calatayud
Country: Spain
Year: 2012
Price: $6.95

Winery review: 88 points – Robert Parker

"The 2012 Tres Ojos Garnacha contains 15% Tempranillo (I wonder why), and unoaked cuvée of 200,000 bottles that matures in vat for at least seven months before bottling. What I tasted was a very honest, fresh and fruit-driven red with aromas of cherries, garrigue and thyme with a medium-bodied palate, some weight and tannins that would do better with food. This is a red that sells for a song.”

My Review: 
The Funk! moldy earth smells abound in a taste that has more briar and wild forest smells and tastes to it. Like eating some berries in a forest, it has some fruit that accompanies the light tannins and the almost invisible acidity. Smooth and heavy in body.

Rating: 0.5

Wine #73

Name: Hahn, Piesporter Michelsberg
Variety: Riesling 
Region: Piesport
Country: Germany
Year: N/A
Price: $9.95

Winery review: 
This wine’s light, airy mouthfeel belies its sweetness and intensity of flavor. Honeyed pineapple aromas; similar flavors on the palate, adding gentle citrus notes toward the long, sweet finish.

My Review: 
Sparkling, slightly mineral, and citrus. A fairly classic mineral Riesling that does not have true bubbles but is so clean it gives the impression of it. Not much sugar, and some light citrus and fruit flavors that are delicate and not super there.


Rating: 1

Wine and Cheese 1: Chateau Morrisette Wine

Below is the experience that my friends and I had trying 3 different wines along with a few cheeses. We got a few different wines from reds and whites to much more fruity wines. First are the reviews of the wines themselves and lastly is the experience of how they changed with the cheeses. 

THE WINES

Wine #66

Name: Sweet Mountain Laurel
Variety: Native American Grape Varietals

Region: Virginia
Country: USA
Year: N/A
Price: $8.49

Winery review: 
A unique and refreshingly sweet dessert style wine made from native American grape varieties. Firm acidity balances the sweetness, producing a crisp finish with aromas of freshly picked grapes.






My Review:

Basically really bad tasting grape soda. On the nose it has grape soda and funky flavors super present, which is not surprising considering that Welch's grape juice is the same species of grape as this wine. On the taste there is an over abundant gasoline/burned rubber taste that absolutely ruins the wine for me.

Rating: -.5


Wine #67

Name: Chateau Morrisette Blackberry
Variety: Blackberries
Region: Virginia
Country: USA
Year: N/A
Price: $9.99

Winery review: 
A sweet and smooth wine packed with the vibrant fruitiness of succulent, sun-ripened blackberries.











My Review: 
Extremely jammy tasting almost like eating some blackberry jam right out of the jar. It has an extreme nose of fruity flavors with just the hint of alcohol heat coming off the wine. This wine also had tastes of rubber off of a playground, like the padding they use, after a hot day. Surprisingly it finishes sweeter than it starts. Overall an okay wine that is easy to drink a little of but hard to drink a lot of due to the lack of acid to balance the overtly sweet wine.


Rating: 0

Wine #68

Name: Bogle Petite Sirah
Variety: Petite Sirah
Region: California
Country: USA
Year: 2012
Price: $8.47

Winery review: 
Petite Sirah is today considered Bogles heritage varietal. Ripe summer blackberries and plums overwhelm both the nose and palate of this wine. Its trademark inky, jammy qualities are a barrage of black fruit and spice, adding layer upon layer of complexity.









My Review: 
Black dark fruits and raspberries are the order of the day for this wine. It starts it nose with a large amount of dark fruit but also some more earthy tones. In the taste the earthy tones really take flight and become more like hay and barnyard smells. These barnyard tastes remind me a little of wood which makes me think that this could have been oaked for a little bit at some point. Lastly it has some nice tannins and acid to balance out the wine. Overall a solid wine that everyone enjoyed.


Rating: 1

THE CHEESES

The cheeses that were used were: Goats Cheese, Camembert, and Gouda made from sheep's milk. These cheeses were also fresh and light, mature and musty, and strong and pungent respectively.

Goats Cheese: Light and creamy this fresh cheese was expected to at least play nice with all the wines and pair best with the second due to its fruity flavors playing well with the cream cheeseyness of the goats cheese.

Camembert: Not super strong without the rind and musky with the rind, this cheese was meant to pair best with the red wine and also the white as long as the rind was not eaten with the white.

Gouda: A much stronger almost cheddar like cheese, this really only had a chance with the red as we thought it would overpower all the other wines.

TASTING THE WINES

Sweet Mountain Laurel

Goats Cheese: Much stronger petrol and grape soda flavors cuts much more to the burned rubber. The cheese picks up some more creamy flavors as it is offset by the acid in the wine.

Camembert: No fruit anymore to speak of only tastes of gasoline and rubber, the cheese does not pair with the wine again. The wine does not really effect the taste of the cheese.

Gouda: Wine looses almost all taste! it really is only slightly funky water now, the cheese also remains unchanged. I think this cheese may be too strong for the wines we have.

Chateau Morrisette Blackberry

Goats Cheese: Tones down the jammy taste and makes the more acidic components of the wine show better. With the apparent addition of malic acid the wine becomes more pleasant and well rounded feeling. The cheese also changes to become almost more like a cream cheese spread that is fruity and would do well on a bagel. Paired very well.

Camembert: The cheese was overpowered this time, killed by sweet grape tastes. It made the wine taste more like the Sweet Mountain Laurel however, gaining some properties of the rubbery and gasoline and loosing the fruit. Did not pair well at all.

Gouda: Wine looses almost all taste! Some slight aftertastes of the wine survived on the mid pallet, the cheese also remains unchanged. This cheese is continuing to be a problem.

Bogle Petite Sirah

Goats Cheese: The only real change in either the wine or the cheese was the addition of alcohol heat in the wine. Other than that they didn't really effect each other.

Camembert: As expected the rind of the cheese played into the slight musty heavier red wine flavors enhancing them and making the wine become more fruity almost like a big fruit bomb of a wine. Lots of black fruit found typically in Cabernet such as blackberries and currents.

Gouda: Surprisingly this wine did not pair with this cheese as we thought. We expected that the big red flavors would be able to compete with this wine, however it look like none of them were able to. We can conclude then that Gouda is just not a cheese made for wine and that we should look other places for a strong cheese.

All of us around the table with the wines and the cheeses enjoying the wine culture of american made wines. Also alcohol.