Tag Archives: $10 wine

Wine of the week: Cellar No. 8 Eight

Cellar No 8The Wine Curmudgeon has written more than 200 wines of the week since I started the blog, and none has been a bigger surprise than this. Cellar No. 8 wines are about as ordinary as possible, the kind that defines grocery store wine. The reds all seem to taste the same, regardless of the varietal ? lots of sweet fruit, some fake oak, and the kind of tannins that are there only if you pay careful attention.

And then there is the Eight ($10, sample), which is a stunner. This red blend, made with the usual suspects, is grocery store wine the way it should be. It has legitimate tannins and balanced acid and just enough red fruit ? no cherry bomb here — to round everything out. Yes, it ?s simple, but it's clean and professional, and that's what you want in a simple $10 wine (which is probably closer to $8 in many locations). Drink this slighlty chilled on its own or with barbecue and burgers.

Given this brand ?s track record, I almost didn ?t taste it. But the Wine Curmudgeon is nothing if not stubborn, so I figured I ?d have a glass and use the rest of the bottle for cooking. Stupid me. What ?s the most important lesson in the wine reviewing? Taste the wine before you judge it.

Wine of the week: Sangre de Toro Vina Sol 2010

Want a good example of what the experts mean by the internationalization of wine? Then taste the Vina Sol from Miguel Torres, one of Spain ?s largest producers. It ?s markedly different from the old days, and made in a softer, more accessible style.

If so, then what ?s it doing as a wine of the week? Because the Vina Sol ($9, purchased) is better made than it used to be. The acidity is in balance, for one thing. Yes, it does seem to have a little too much fruit in the middle (almost tropical), but it does have that Spanish white wine lemony thing going on and doesn ?t taste like it came from Paso Robles, which seems to be one of the goals of internationalization. It ?s made with parellada, a grape used in cava, and that ?s almost enough to make the wine interesting by itself.

It ?s not a $10 Hall of Fame wine, but not every wine of the week is. In fact, if you ?re stuck in a grocery store and need a bottle of wine, this is perfectly fine. Serve it chilled and drink it on its own or with almost any Tuesday night dinner.

And, because it ?s from Torres, there’s a bull on the bottle ? white, of course, since it ?s a white wine.

Barefoot wine review 2012

Barefoot, the $6 grocery store brand owned by E&J Gallo, is tremendously controversial among wine writers. They refuse to believe that any wine that sells that well at that price can be any good. That it is ?mass produced ? doesn ?t help their disposition, either.

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New this year: The 2013 Barefoot wine review
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Or, as so many of my colleagues have vowed (including the famous ones), ?You aren ?t going to catch me reviewing those wines. ?

Which is not the way the Wine Curmudgeon does things, is it? After the jump, my annual Barefoot review, featuring the sauvignon blanc and pinot noir (with links to four of my Barefoot posts at the bottom of this one).

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Mini-reviews 36: Ribera, La Vieille Ferme, Rodney Strong, Sledgehammer

Reviews of wines that don ?t need their own post, but are worth noting for one reason or another. Look for it on the final Friday of each month:

? Bodegas Pe alba L pez Monte Castrillo 2009 ($13, sample): Spanish tempranillo from Ribera del Duero with lots of thickish red fruit that needs beefy dishes. Decent value, but you have to like wine made this way.

? La Vieille Ferme Blanc 2011 ($8, purchased): Hugely disappointing vintage from the French white that is a long-time blog favorite. Big-time banana fruit, which not only isn't pleasant, but shows a change in winemaking to softer and more sweetish approach.

? Rodney Strong Sauvignon Blanc 2010 ($13.50, sample): Always dependable and value-driven California white. Look for melon and California grassiness, thought not quite as citrusy as other west coast sauvignon blancs.

? Sledgehammer Zinfandel 2009 ($15, sample): Yes, it is. A massive, oaky, and alcoholic zinfandel with extracted jammy fruit if that's what you're in the mood for.

Memorial Day and rose 2012

Memorial Day and rose 2012The Wine Curmudgeon appreciates his readers and visitors more than they will ever know. Without you, I ?d have to get a real job, where I would probably not be allowed to drink wine.

Having said that, I must bring up one of your few failings: You don ?t much like rose. No rose review has ever been a top 10 annual post, and they barely crack the top 50.

I especially pondered that question preparing for this post, the blog ?s fifth annual rose extravaganza. And I can ?t come up with a good reason. Rose is cheap. It ?s better made than ever before. It ?s food friendly. You can put an ice cube in it. What more do you need from a wine?

After the jump, the basics about roses and this year ?s recommendations:

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Wine of the week: Massamier La Mignarde Cuvee des Oliviers 2010

fiche-oliviers-roseThe name of this wine is a very long and very French way of saying that this is exactly the kind of rose that makes the Wine Curmudgeon smile. It ?s cheap and it ?s dry, but more importantly, it ?s full of summer and backyards and porches and barbecues.

The des Oliviers ($10, purchased) is from southern France and is mostly made with cinsault. In this, it ?s firmly in the French style ? some fruit (in this case, cranberry), but not the big dollops that give the impression of sweetness and so confuse so many wine drinkers into thinking pink wine means white zinfandel. This wine is about as far from white zinfandel as possible.

Also impressive: The des Oliviers is a bit floral on the nose, and its clean, crisp finish leaves you ready to take another sip.

Serve this chilled on its own, or with any summer activity. Highly recommended, and a candidate for the 2013 $10 Hall of Fame.

Rose basics

Rose basicsRose isn’t red or white wine, but something all its own. Keep these rose basics in mind when you buy rose:

• Rose isn’t white zinfandel (or white merlot or whatever). Roses are pink wines made with red grapes and they aren’t sweet. Why are they pink? Because the red grape skins are left in the fermenting grape juice just long enough to color the wine. There is a second, much less common method called bleeding, in which wine is siphoned from freshly pressed red wine.

• Rose’s fruit flavors are mostly red berries (think strawberry or cranberry) or watermelon. They should be served chilled, and they pair pretty much with any food, including beef and barbecue. Rose was made for Sunday afternoon, sitting on the back porch, rose in hand, burgers on the grill.

• Don’t buy old rose. Look for vintages that are a year old, and at most two. Roses are not made to age, and should be fresh and flavorful. The color in older vintages starts to fade, like paper that yellows. This isn’t as hard and fast a rule as it used to be, since so much rose is os much better made than the old days. But it’s still something to keep in mind.

• Rose styles vary by country (though these are becoming less noticeable as winemaking becomes more international). Spanish wines are going to be bone dry with less fruit flavor. French roses are not quite as dry as the Spanish, but they usually don’t have a lot of fruit flavor (and rose from Provence is among the best in the world). Some U.S. wines are so full of strawberry flavor that they seem sweet, but that’s your taste buds playing a trick on you.