Tag Archives: Brancott

Mini-reviews 141: Be Human, Carmel Road, Brancott, Mulderbosch

Be HumanReviews of wines that don’t need their own post, but are worth noting for one reason or another. Look for it on the fourth Friday of each month. This month, bring on the residual sugar!

• Be Human Merlot 2018 ($17, sample, 14.5%): Slightly sweet Washington red, with lots of fake chocolate and fake cherry. Somehow, one review described this as a dry, cheap wine. Sigh.

• Carmel Road Chardonnay 2019 ($15, sample, 13.%): A California white that is about as typical a $15 supermarket wine as you’ll find: Pleasant and a touch sweet, the kind of wine that will leave you wondering what you saw in it after you finish the bottle.

• Brancott Flight Song Pinot Grigio 2019 ($12, purchased, 9%): This New Zealand white gives new meaning to the term post-modern. It’s a riesling-style pinot grigio, so it’s sweet – and its selling point is that it’s lower in calories than “regular” pinot grigio. Not so much gross as just annoying. Imported by Pernod Ricard USA

• Mulderbosch Cabernet Franc 2017 ($39, sample, 13%): South Africa’s Mulderbosch has found a way to add sweetness to a pricey red wine. Who knew? Otherwise, it’s a sort of New World cabernet franc, which means less graphite and more red fruit, and not much else. Imported by Third Leaf Wines

Photo: “A couple drinking wine” by freestocks.org is marked with CC0 1.0

Wine of the week: Brancott Sauvingon Blanc Reserve 2011

Brancott Sauvignon Blanc Reserve 2011This was not the scheduled wine of the week, but since I ?m still waiting, weeks later, for a distributor to call me back about a Gascon wine I want to do, I had to shift the schedule around.

I mention this not to damn the Brancott with faint praise, because it deserves better than that. Rather, it ?s to note (again, sadly) how lazy distributors are and to point out that we shouldn ?t force ourselves to stick to some sort of wine drinking schedule. Which even I find myself doing sometimes. Drink what you like, but be willing to try all sorts of things.

The Brancott ($10, purchased) is a mostly one-dimensional New Zealand sauvignon blanc, but that's not a bad thing for a grocery store wine at this price — especially since so many others aren't even that. Right, Monkey Bay? There is grapefruit, and it does dominate, which is to be expected. But it ?s not overdone, and there is also some ripe tropical fruit in the middle, just 12 1/2 percent alcohol, and a clean, fresh approach. All in all, a very pleasant surprise.

Drink this chilled on its own, or with grilled vegetables, small plate salads, and even something like hummus. And be glad that I was forced to take a different path.