Category:Red wine

Wine of the week: Sunset Winery Moon Glow Merlot 2004

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

imageBruce and Birgit Anderson run Sunset Winery out of what is more or less a house in suburban Fort Worth, so the idea that their 2004 Moon Glow Merlot can win an award seems kind of fantastic. Burleson is not exactly Napa.

Nevertheless, the wine tells the story. The Moon Glow (about $20, available from the winery) won a bronze medal at the prestigious Dallas Morning News competition earlier this year. It ?s a warm, rich wine that is isn ?t as big or as jammy as most California merlots. Plus, it doesn ?t have any of the excess acid that characterizes so many poorly-made Texas merlots and cabernet sauvignons. Pair it with red meat dishes, and especially lamb.

I ?m not necessarily sold on merlot as a grape that needs to be grown in Texas. But the Andersons and grower Neal Newsom, who supplied the grapes, show what is possible.

Wine review: Le Coq Rouge 2006

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

image This is the red wine bookend to Sacha Lachine ?s La Poule Blanche ? a blend of syrah, cabernet sauvignon, merlot and grenache, It, too, is a fine value, though I liked the cleaner, crisper lines of the white a little more than I did the red.

The Le Coq Rouge (about $12) is fruity, more Spanish than French (probably from the grenache). And it ?s much easier to drink than more tannic wines from Australia and California. Drink it with barbecue, meatloaf and and just about any mid-week red wine meal you can think of.

Three Australian winemakers, part II

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

This is the second of two parts about selected Australian wine and winemakers. The first part is here.

In one respect, Rosemount, Robert Oatley Vineyards, and Jacob ?s Creek/Orlando are completely different companies. The first is part of a huge multi-national, the second was formed not to be a huge multi-national, and the third is the high-end label for a huge multi-national.

But what they have in common is a willingness to make something other than shiraz that blasts away at your senses ? and they aren ?t shy about saying that. That ?s a most welcome development.

Here ?s a sample of some of their most interesting wines:

Continue reading →

Wine review: Menage a Trois Red 2007

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

image The menage (about $10), from Folie a Deux, is a very confusing wine, which has nothing to do with its double entendre marketing. It ?s a red blend from California that isn ?t heavy, tannic or alcoholic, which is so rare as to be worth mentioning. And the wine is supposed to have been aged in oak, but I ?ll be damned if I could taste it. In fact, it tasted like a steel-aged Beaujolais.

Plus, it ?s cheap and tasty. The blend of zinfandel, cabernet sauvignon and merlot is quite approachable, quite jammy and even juicy. It ?s a style of wine that ?s almost old-fashioned in California, harkening back to the days before Wine Magazines and point scores. Drink this with barbecue, fall picnic food like grilled corn on the cob, or even takeout pizza.

Wine of the week: Reds 2006

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

image

One of the few good reasons for using corks to close wines was when Reds had pictures of famous Bolsheviks on its corks. The Wine Curmudgeon still  has some Lenin and Trotsky corks in a drawer somewhere.

Reds (about $9) is a screw top these days, but the wine remains true to its mission ?  a cheap, quality red wine blend that ?s food friendly. It ?s a little more fruit forward and raspberry jammy than it used to be, but it ?s still a well-made wine that offers considerable value and deserves $10 Hall of Fame consideration. I drank it with roast chicken, and it would also do well with hamburgers, grilled sausages and spaghetti and meatballs.

Mandola Estate Winery

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

image This is one of an occasional series detailing Texas wineries. The complete list is here.

What does one make of Mandola, which is not only Texas' first celebrity winery, but one of its newest and most costly to build? Visit on a Saturday afternoon, and it's a foodie Disney World, packed with people touring the winery and crowding the restaurant.

Complicating the issue is that Mandola, named for Damian Mandola of Carrabba's restaurant fame, has had some problems in its first couple of years in business. First and foremost, illness forced winemaker Mark Penna to take a leave of absence in 2008, and the winery has been making do without him for much of this year.

Fortunately, consulting winemaker Greg Harrington is one of the best in the business, and most of the the wines are doing what they're supposed to be doing.

Continue reading →

Green wine, part II: How does it taste?

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

This is the second of two parts looking at green wine and environmentally friendly ways to produce and package wine. Part I, which discussed the concept of green wine, is here.

It all depends, and the Wine Curmudgeon is not trying to be flip. Wine that is produced and packaged to be environmentally friendly faces the same obstacles that non-green wine does. It has to made with quality fruit and it has to be made by a quality winemaker. Otherwise, you ?re drinking plonk. Poorly made white zinfandel isn ?t going to taste any better in packaging that reduces its carbon footprint.

That said, there are green wines that offer quality and value (and, for the purposes of this post, green wine includes organic wine and wine produced to have a low carbon footprint):

Continue reading →