Talk-A-Vino

Few more wines to report on in the Value Wines project. First, 2007 Rengo Valpolicella Classico Superiore Ripasso ($11.98). Valpolicella Ripasso is a little brother (or a sister, take your liking) of Amarone wines, which are my favorite red wines (when they are done right). Ripasso wines made from the second pass of the grapes already used to produce Amarone wines, hence the name “second pass”. So if anything, you should expect that Ripasso wine will resemble the Amarone wine itself. And it actually does in case of this Rengo Ripasso. This wine needs a bit of time for breathing, and then it resembles Amarone with sweet raisiny nose, and then soft fruit and very balanced tannins and acidity. This wine also has medium finish and it is easy to drink. Drinkability: 8-.

The next wine is from France – 2009 Barc Vallee Borgueil Les Castines ($9.98). Borgueil wines are made out of Cabernet Franc grape. It is not easy to find a good Cabernet Franc wine, especially in this project’s price range. This wine was very nice and gentle, with good earthiness on the palate, good balance, good acidity. This wine is definitely food friendly and should work well with many dishes. It will also drink well over the next 3-4 years. Drinkability: 7+ .

The next wine in the series is called Caves Bonifacio from Portugal ($3.98). I typically avoid writing bad reviews – unfortunately, this particular wine was so bad, it tasted ” chemically engineered”, very unnatural. So it made it for the first bad bottle in the series (first out of 9). I will not even rate Drinkability here as the wine was undrinkable (had to go down the drain). Hopefully the next bottle will be better.

One more update not related to the value wines project. As you might know, I reached my goal of trying wines with 300 grapes for the Treble status in Wine Century club. However, the journey of discovery continues. I just had an opportunity to try another 8 new grapes, and I have another 5 to add shortly. Therefore, I’m continuing the journey without setting the goal of becoming Quattro member, and I changed the “treble status” section to the “grape count”, which will reflect the current state of this process. Will I make it to the quattro level? Who knows – but I will definitely have fun trying.

And one last note – few days ago, I was able to try some truly amazing wines – so be on a lookout for the interesting updates.