Posts Tagged ‘blueberry’
Varietal: 100% Shiraz
Region: South Eastern Australia
Cost: $7 (SRP)
Winemaker’s Notes: Ripe blackberries and blueberries with spicy black pepper on the nose. Pairs well with BBQ baby back ribs with macaroni salad, jerk chicken with brown rice and black beans, or without any food at all.
My Review: It’s been unseasonably warm here in Virginia so I’ve been able to make use of my grill here at the end of January and start of February when it’s usually covered and forgotten until March. Because of that, my wife and I recently threw some chicken on the grill with some BBQ sauce basted on and decided to open up a bottle of Fisheye Shiraz that had been sent to me.
Varietal: 88% Cabernet Sauvignon; 5% Syrah; 3% Merlot; 2% Petit Verdot; 1% Malbec; 1% Cabernet Franc
Region: California – USA
Cost: $11 (SRP)
Winemaker’s Notes: The wine has a smooth texture and sweet, red fruit character that distinguishes California’s finest Cabernet Sauvignons, along with smoky oak, vanilla, and roasted nut accents to invigorate the palate and provide a lengthy finish. Enjoy with standing rib roasts, grilled steak, roast duck, spareribs, lasagna, or flavorful hard cheeses.
My Review: An evening where my wife was out and I was home alone with the dog to fend for myself on dinner usually only means one thing – steak, a baked potato, and a bottle of red wine to be enjoyed. There are worse ways to spend an evening. I’d been sitting on this sample until I could get around to cooking up a steak, and as tends to be the case, I’m glad I did.
Varietal: 100% Syrah
Region: Central Coast – CA – USA
Cost: $10 (SRP)
Winemaker’s Notes: With its maritime influence, California’s Monterey region has an extended growing season that yields wines with full flavor development and great acid balance. Mandolin Syrah has a dense core of blueberry and blackberry fruit, supported by layers of spice and rich vanilla tones.
My Review: Last month I was impressed by the 2009 Mandolin Cabernet Sauvignon, so when I decided to open up the Syrah last night I had if not high expectations, at least expectations to not be let down. The wine lived up to that…sorta.
Varietal: Merlot (89% Merlot; 11% Cabernet Sauvignon)
Region: California – Napa Valley – USA
Cost: $21
Deep ruby red in color with aromas of blueberry, cassis, and cocoa. Berry fruit, tobacco, dark chocolate, and refined new oak all mix in the mouth. Pairs well with beef, lamb, BBQ, roasted chicken, pasta, and grilled vegetables.
Recommendations: I’ve never tried to hide my apprehension about Merlot. I’ve had bad ones in the past that had put a bad taste in my mouth (no pun intended), but had recently decided to give it a second go, partly due to some impressive Merlots coming out of Virginia. With that in mind, I opened the Folie a Deux for a dinner of pasta and red sauce.
I was instantly impressed with the deep ruby/garnet coloring of the wine, and I managed to pick up some white pepper and berry on the nose. Dark chocolate and oak were most prevalent for me in the mouth, which was a fine pairing with the dinner I’d prepared. Tannins on the finish can certainly be attributed to the big of Cabernet Sauvignon added to the wine, but it was a fairly lush, full-bodied wine – what I’d been reading about Merlot but had yet to really experienced from a California bottle.
Now, all that being said, I have a big complaint with this wine – 14.5%/vol alcohol is just too much for any wine. I know that I’ve complained before about the seeming race to see which vineyard can create the wine with the highest alcohol content that people will still drink, but it has to stop. I was barely able to get any aromas or flavors, and only those that were bold because of the aroma and flavor of alcohol that permeated this wine.
While the wine was fine with my meal, the sauce helped to cut the alcohol, by itself I found it less pleasurable. I did appreciate the full-bodied nature of the wine, and I think that with a bit less alcohol it would be a truly spectacular wine. That being said, unless you really like the taste of alcohol I have a hard time recommending this wine.
Special thanks to the International Wine of the Month Club for supplying the wine for this review.
Varietal: Mencia
Region: Spain
Cost: $21
Deep ruby color with aromas of blueberry, violet, and woods. Flavors of cherry and cassis pair with chicken, pork, salmon, and other meats. Pairs well with Spanish flavors and foods.
Recommendations: I had never heard of the Mencia varietal until the International Wine of the Month Club sent me this one to try, but as with most wine, I was open minded and reminded myself that I do in fact like Spanish wines. I loved the deep red color of the wine in the glass, but I didn’t get any blueberry on the nose myself, with the alcohol overpowering the aromas even after allowing it to open up a bit.
Pairing the wine with a steak dinner helped to cut the flavor of alcohol as well (it was 14%/vol), but after dinner with nothing to balance it, the alcohol flavor and aroma was rather overwhelming. It wasn’t until much later as I was finishing off my final glass of the wine that I started to get some of the cherry flavors coming through.
I’m having a hard time recommending this wine because it took so long for the wine to open up enough for the actual flavors to come through. If you do have this wine, decanting and letting it open for at least 20 to 30 minutes is the best advice I can give. Drinking this wine with anything other than boldly flavored food is probably going to result in the wine overpowering the meal.
Hopefully this wine isn’t indicative of the Mencia varietal, and I would certainly give another bottle of Mencia a try as the description of it sounds good, but the Pazo de Arribi Bierzo just fell short for me.
Varietal: Blended Red (Sangiovese, Syrah, Carignan, Barbera, Zinfandel, Mourvedre, Montepulciano, Petit Verdot, Tannat, Aglianico, Petite Sirah, Nero d’Avola, Grenache)
Region: California – USA
Cost: $7 – $10
Cherry, raspberry, blueberry, cassis, and chocolate flavors all blend together. Pair this wine with chicken, ground beef, pizza.
Recommendations: I’ll be the first to admit, my wife and I first paid attention to this wine because of the bottle. We thought, if nothing else, it would look good over our cabinets (see my previous post if you haven’t already). Having looked over the list of what was in the wine, we decided that the wine would go better with pizza, and so when we ordered a pizza one evening, we opened the bottle.
I wanted to like this wine, I really did. I’m a fan of most of the varietals that they used to blend it, and I’m a firm believer in table wines that aren’t impressive, but aren’t bad. Unfortunately, the Big House Red just left me shrugging. It wasn’t terrible in a pour the bottle out kind of way, but it just didn’t do anything to make me pay attention – good or bad. Read the rest of this entry »
