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Daily Glass: Wine Happenings on New Year’s Day, as well as before and after
New Year holiday in our family always means lots of food and drinks. And it is not even New Year’s evening – all the festivities start a few days before, and continue going into the New Year’s day itself. As the result, it means that a lot of wines were opened, and I don’t even want to talk about food (I refuse to touch the scale at least for the next two weeks).
We didn’t drink anything amazing (well, may be with the exception of one wine), at the same time we didn’t drink anything really bad, so here is a summary of what we went through (side note – I will make an attempt to produce “wine review” posts more regularly this year – call it New Year’s resolution or what).
E1 Locations, Spain ($20, 14.5 ABV) – This wine is made by Dave Phinney, winemaker behind Orin Swift wines, and its goal is to showcase best grapes form the best places. E1 Locations is a blend of Garnacha, Tempranillo and Carinena, all grown in three famous regions in Spain – Rioja, Ribera Del Duero and Priorat. To be very honest with you, this is not my style of wine – it has a lot of heavy fruit ( I call it “burnt fruit”), some warm spice and hint of oak with not enough acidity – however, the wine opened up somewhat next day, showing brighter fruit and more harmony. Drinkability: 7+
2009 Chateau Maison Blanche Medoc ($19.99?, 14% ABV, sorry for the picture of the ripped label) – tasting of this wine was an interesting experience. On the first day, it was drinkable, but lacked any excitement. The next day, it became plain bad – but I don’t pour wine down the drain easily, so I put it aside. Day number 3 – same story, not the wine I want to drink – and again I let it be. On the day number four, I decided to give this wine one final taste before disposing of it – and found it completely changed. The wine opened up, showing nice luscious fruit, supple tannins, good acidity and good overall balance, it became soft and round. This wine definitely needs time. And before I forget – this wine is made of 85% Merlot, 13% Cabernet Sauvignon, 2% Cabernet Franc. Drinkability: 8- (either decant when serving or cellar for a while).
2008 Bogle Vineyards Phantom ($17, 14.5% ABV) – Bogle Vineyards is one of my favorite producers of inexpensive California wines. While they make pretty much a full line (Chardonnay, Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon, etc.), Bogle Vineyards Petite Sirah typically represents an unbeatable QPR – it is simply an excellent wine usually priced at $11.99. The wine we had, Phantom, is a bit of a higher end – it is a blend of Zinfandel, Petite Sirah and Mourvedre. It drinks very well, showing a bouquet of warm spices on the nose, and a lot of nice bright fruit on the palate, ripe plums, touch of cinnamon and nutmeg, good acidity – quite an enjoyable wine. Drinkability: 8-
2010 Field Recordings “Neverland” Red Wine Santa Barbara ($26, 15.4% ABV) – Have you ever tried any wines from Field Recordings? You know, may be I shouldn’t even talk about this wine here? Too many people will find out, it will be hard to get, do I really need all that hassle? Well, okay – feels good sharing a secret.
Andrew Jones, winemaker behind Field Recordings, was grape grower first, working with many wineries and tending to their vineyards. Later on he started making his own wines, each of them coming from the different sites, from the places were particular grapes do particularly well. This wine, called Neverland, comes form the Three Creek Vineyard site, and it is a blend of 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Petit Verdot and 16% Malbec. The wine was perfectly balanced, with layered soft fruit, black currant and touch of blueberries, dark chocolate notes, very long and pleasant finish. Why I wanted to keep such a great wine to myself? Very simple – total production: 150 cases. When it’s gone, it’s gone… Drinkability: 9-
2011 Brick Lane Pinot Noir California ($?, 13.4% ABV) – When faced with the wines like this one, I always have a dilemma – do I write about them in this blog, or do I not? I don’t want to pretend to be a big critic and proudly proclaim my scores – I look at the wine rating mostly as a fun exercise. Anyway, as you probably guessed, this was not a very good wine. Thin, green, acidic, unbalanced, drinkable, but not delivering any pleasure. Drinkability: 6-
2011 Dr. Hans VonMuller Riesling Spatlese Mosel ($11.99, 8% ABV) – I either don’t drink enough Riesling, or I don’t write enough about it, or both – somehow, I think Rieslings are scarcely discussed in this blog. For the Spatlese, this was a very modest Riesling – yes, it had an explicit sweetness – but it was not cloying by all means ( some of the 2010 and 2011 German Rieslings I tried had this clinging sweetness even at the Kabinett level). Sweetness was nicely balanced by acidity, and overall this was a very pleasant wine with good amount of white fruit, some apricot and may be peach, very enjoyable. Drinkability: 7+
Now it is time to talk about Sparkling wines – I have a few to share with you. First, NV Abrau-Durso Semi-dry, Russia ($12.99) – as planned, we ringed the New Year 2013 with this wine. Yes, it is not the first time I write about Abrau-Durso in this blog (it was also my wine #19 in the Top wines of 2012 list) – but I can’t help it, as the wine is good! Apple and touch of yeast on the nose, very restrained white fruit on the palate, good acidity, hint of sweetness, perfectly refreshing bubbles – you have to try it to believe it. Drinkability: 8
We are almost done, I promise! A few more sparkling wines:
So here are NV Cremant D’Alsace Brut Cattin ($16.99, 12% ABV) and NV Cremant de Bourgogne Louis Bouillot Grande Reserve Perle de Vigne ($?, 12% ABV) – the reason I lump these two wines together is that they are literally indistinguishable (unfortunately!). It is interesting that grape composition is quite different between them – Cremant d’Alsace is made out of Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir, Riesling and Chardonnay. Cremant de Bourgogne is a blend of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Gamay, and Aligoté. Both wines are drinkable – a bit of yeast, good acidity, crisp and refreshing – but not exciting. Drinkability: 7
Peach Canei Italy ($4, 7.5% ABV) – I guess by even mentioning this “wine” ( it is more of a wine cocktail – it is peach flavored grape wine) in this blog I have to officially renounce a self-awarded title of a wine snob and never even try to claim it again.
I told my friend Zak that way back ( about 20 years ago), when I was just slowly getting into wines, Peach Canei was one of our favorite wines. I think only a young age protected Zak from having a heart attack – he was completely shocked. So he got me a bottle of the wonderful beverage as part of my New Year’s present. As you can imagine, I had no reason to cellar it, so we decided to open the bottle right away. It had a pronounced peach flavor, with a bit too much sweetness, lightly fizzed, probably could’ve used a bit more acidity. But – it was drinkable, and we managed to finish a bottle. It is highly unlikely that I would ever crave this wine, but again, it is not that terrible as you might think. Drinkability: 6.
That’s all I have for you regarding the wines – wait, don’t go yet. New Year is usually celebrated with lots of food – here are couple of pictures which will give you an idea of how the table looked like:
That’s all for today, folks. Did you have a most memorable New Year’s wine? Please use the comments section below and share! Cheers!
Turley The Label Cabernet Sauvignon: Don’t Judge a Wine by its Bottle
As promised, the bottle of 2010 Turley The Label Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley ($40, 14.5% ABV) was open today, and here are my notes – almost live, as I still have some wine left in the glass. For those who just run into this post, it is pretty much a sequel to my rant about the bottle, which is extremely indiscreet, and the post answering that rant and explaining that the bottle looks that way by design.
Now let’s go past the bottle itself, and let’s talk about the content – i. e., the wine. Considering that I started from the rant, I wanted to give this bottle a proper evaluation, so here we go, step by step. We even reached out for the Reidel Cabernet glasses, which are only used for the special occasions.
Color: Dark garnet color. You can’t read through the glass, so the wine definitely needs more time.
Rim variation: absent, it is a young wine. But – rim is pretty wide, which suggests high alcohol content.
Smell: Blueberries, hint of tobacco, earthiness, a touch of barnyard (which I personally like) – on the nose, this wine resembled Dunn Cabernet.
Taste: earthy, with touch of green notes which disappeared after ten minutes in the glass, alcohol initially noticeable, but as wine continued to breathe, it became well integrated. Tobacco and dark chocolate notes, touch of eucalyptus, fresh plums, black currant and more blueberries – but restrained, no blueberry jam of any kind.
Legs: Very visible, also carrying some color – suggesting that this is full-bodied wine.
Finish: Long. Tannins only started showing up after about 30 seconds, and then they lingered for probably another minute.
Conclusion: This is one beautiful wine. This wine was described by the winemakers as an attempt to recreate Napa Cabernet as it was in 60th and 70th, more of restrained and down to earth type – I think this attempt was very successful. The wine was very balanced, with fruit, acidity and tannins being in a complete harmony. Drinkability: 9-
I’m not going to recite my learned lessons again (I already recouped them in the previous post), but yes – don’t judge a wine by its bottle, at least I will try not to. Cheers!
Daily Glass: Norton, a True American Grape
Today was my wife’s 19th anniversary of coming to US, so I was looking for the appropriate wine to celebrate. I didn’t have anything from 1993. There were ’86, ’88 and ’90, but somehow opening those wines didn’t make too much sense. And then I saw a bottle of Norton. No, it was much younger than 19, but Norton is often called a True American Grape, so it should be perfect for the occasion.
So I pulled this bottle of 2005 Chrysalis Vineyards Norton Estate Bottled from Virginia (12.8% ABV), which I got during our visit to Chrysalis Vineyards about two years ago (here is the post about it). Somehow, from the moment the cork was pulled, the wine worked perfectly. It had that hint of barnyard aroma, just a hint, as much as you get from the well made Loire Cabernet Franc – a bit of explicit earthiness on the nose. On the palate, it was very restrained and balanced, quite dry – somewhat similar to Barolo, only without a bear claw grip of tannins, with some leather and again earthy notes. As the wine warmed up, it showed more fruit, some raspberries and plums, with good acidity, and it stayed very balanced until, well, the bottle was empty. In terms of rating, I will put Drinkability at 8.
I’m sure this wine will continue evolving – but this was my only bottle, so it is what it is. Oh well, at least it was a good bottle of wine, so no regrets here. Cheers!
P.S. I’m purposefully avoiding mentioning the debates, which were also an all American event today – let me only tell you that the wine was far more superior than the 5 minutes of debates I watched…
Daily Glass: Before Its Time…
It’s been awhile since I posted in the Daily Glass category, and by design of this blog the plan was actually to have the posts exactly as it said – daily. Well, we all have plans, and then we have the reality – whether we like it or not.
A couple of months back, I got an email from Benchmark Wine Company with an offer to buy the wine. It was about Petite Sirah, and the way it was written, it was hard to resist (besides, Petite Sirah is one of my favorite wines in general) – so I got a few bottles of Retro Cellars Howell Mountain Petite Sirah. To be more precise, I got one bottle of 2004 and 2 bottles of 2007.
I was visiting a good friend and decided that today would be a good day to open the 2004 Retro Cellars Howell Mountain Petite Sirah (14.2% ABV, $35). From the moment the wine went into the glass, it was very clear – the wine was opened way before its time. In one of the wine classes I learned a simple way to find out if wine is ready to drink – you pour the wine in the glass, and hold the glass tilted above some text written on the white paper – if you can read through that glass, the wine is ready to drink. This Petite Sirah was practically black – very concentrated very dark garnet color, without any possibility of reading through. On the palate, the wine had lots of sour cherries, ink and a touch of very dark chocolate – almost a baking chocolate level, the one which practically has no sweetness. Firm tannins. structure and perfect acidity were completing a very balanced package. This definitely was a great wine – drinkable now, but in reality, needing probably another 20 years to shine fully. Drinkability: 9-
That sentiment (needs time!) was also confirmed when I turned the bottle over – it was made by Mike Dunn, the son of Randy Dunn, one of the best winemakers in the Napa Valley. known for making Cabernet Sauvignon wines which require a very long aging period (some stories about Randy Dunn were mentioned in the last issue of Wednesday’s Meritage).
I definitely enjoyed the wine – but when it comes to the 2007 which I still have, patience ( and a lot of it) will be my best friend. Cheers!
Daily Glass: 2009 Chorus Effect by Field Recordings
I have a question for you. Have you ever experienced a special bottle “today is the day… or not” effect? It is when you have a bottle you want to open, but you can’t decide if today should be the day, or you need to wait a bit longer? I’m not talking about special bottle which. let’s say, bears vintage year of your son or daughter’s birthday – those are easy, you only contemplate once a year whether to open the bottle or not. I’m talking about more of an everyday, reasonably priced wine, of which, let’s say you have only one bottle, and you know that you can’t get another one – this is the case in point.
Ever since I was blown away by the bottle of Fiction by Field Recordings (here is the link to my post about that experience), I wanted to try another wine made by Andrew Jones – Chorus Effect. I had the bottle for about half a year in “to use in the near term” place, and I can’t even tell you how many times I was in the “today is the day” mood, and … nope, I guess it was not.
And somehow it happened that the day was finally today, and the bottle was open ( one easy move, you know – those screw tops are perfect for easy opening).
This 2009 Field Recordings Chorus Effect Koligian Vineyard, Paso Robles ($26, 15.3% ABV, 249 cases made) is a Bordeaux-style blend – you can see the exact composition on the picture of the back label.
The wine had beautiful purple color, bright and fresh. Nose was showing sweet cherries, plums and a touch of spices. But the palate… If Fiction, which I mentioned earlier, had absolutely astonishing nose, this wine had the same on the palate. This was a textbook study of a red wine, all in one sip – not the Bordeaux specifically, but the red wine overall. Sweet cherries, ripe plums, blueberries, tar, sweet vanilla, licorice, violet, chocolate, pepper, tobacco, eucalyptus – you could easily taste each and all. At the same time, the wine was balanced, with soft tannins, without any jamminess which can be often observed at such high alcohol levels. I’m not sure if I’m ready to rate it – I really want to see what will happen with this wine tomorrow – but for now, I will put the Drinkability at 8-, mainly due to the alcohol burn which was not noticeable at the beginning but showed up couple of hours after the bottle was opened.
Did you open your special bottle today? Will be glad to hear your story. Cheers!
Weekend Wine Happenings
This past weekend was filled with different wine events, which I want to share with you. First and foremost – arrival of the No Girls wine. No Girls wine is made by Christophe Baron, the wine maker behind Cayuse – one of the cult wineries from Washington state. What is so special? No Girls wine is available only through the mailing list. If you ever dealt with winery mailing lists you probably know that before you get on the mailing list, first you spend time on the waiting list for the mailing list. It took more than two years for me to move from waiting list to mailing list with Turley, makers of the great Zinfandels. I think for more than 3 years I’m still on the waiting list for Alban, Cayuse and Carlisle. With No Girls wine, despite the fact that I signed up literally on the same day as the offer came in, initially I got an e-mail that I didn’t make the mailing list, with the follow up e-mail in a couple of month saying that I got an allocation.
Hence the excitement and anticipation associated with arrival of No Girls wine – 2008 Grenache and Syrah from La Paciencia vineyard in Walla Walla. I can’t tell you anything about the wine itself – I plan to give it some time first. However, even packaging alone can make you excited – and to explain what I mean, here are few pictures for you.
Very bright and clever – what do you think?
Now, on the subject of the wines I actually tasted over this weekend, there were few I wanted to talk about.
First one is a Spanish wine 2010 Laya D.O. Almansa (14.5% ABV). This wine is a blend of Garnacha (70%) and Monstrell (30%). When you open the bottle and take a first sip, it comes out very grapey and young. It took this wine 3 days to develop a nice undertone of richness, with some ripe red fruit, a touch of spices and smokiness. Considering the price ($7.99) this is a great everyday wine (Drinkability: 7+).
Next one is a 2009 Textbook Cabernet Sauvignon Fin de journee Napa Valley (14.5% ABV). I had this wine for a few months, waiting for the right moment to try it and building up expectations – somehow the name “Textbook” caused a lot of warm expectations, especially with the back label promising a “textbook Napa Cabernet”. The wine had a nice nose of the dense black fruit, not too jammy, but present. On the palate, the fruit grew together with nice tannins and silky texture, only to somehow stop short of delivering the “oompf”. Almost like watching the golf ball slowly rolling after the putt “almost, almost, almost, ahh”. Signature black currant was almost there, but didn’t really show up in its clean beauty. Don’t get me wrong – for a $20 Napa Cab, this was a good wine, but it had to battle my inflated expectations… and lost. Drinkability: 7+.
Last but not least was 2009 Catastrophe Red Cattail Creek Estate Winery, Four Mile Creek VQA, Canada (12.5% ABV). We brought this wine back from Canada after the last year’s trip. It is a blend of Gamay Noir, Merlot and Cabernet. On the nose, it has a bright red fruit. On the palate, there is more red fruit, such as sour cherries, hint of earthiness, good clean acidity, very balanced. Medium body and very easy to drink. This wine also would be a great food wine – too bad, I only brought one bottle back. Drinkability: 8-.
That’s all folks. Don’t forget that April 25th is a Wine Blogging Wednesday, with the theme “Barossa Bumerang” – find a bottle of Barossa wine from Australia, enjoy it, and write a blog post or at least leave a comment here. Have a great week! Cheers!
Daily Glass: Chianti Escapades
I haven’t done one of these ”daily glass” posts in a while, and at some point I really thought that these posts will be written daily. Some plans, huh? Okay, let’s talk about wine, shall we?
I have to tell you – once people know that I’m seriously ”into wine”, one of the first questions I hear is ”so, what’s your favorite wine?” – and this is the question I’m dreading literally the most – because I don’t have an answer. Depending on the mood, food, company and tons of other factors, I will be glad to drink different wines all the time. Better question might be – what wines I don’t like? You think you got me, right? No so fast. The only wines I don’t like are those which are bad (yes, I know – very lame and predictable answer) – and luckily, there are really very few of those. But – as we are having an honest talk here – I have to tell you that there are wines which I’m generally trying to avoid. Not that I don’t like them, but I don’t get much out of them – on average, barring any exceptions. Not trying to create any loaded pause here – one kind of wine which I often trying avoid is Chianti.
Why? A lot of Chianti wines I tasted are flat in their flavor profile – Chianti is usually considered a nice and easy wine to drink – which it is, but this ”ease” also takes away most of the excitement for me. Of course we can not and should not generalize – as I said, I’m avoiding it, but this is not vegans-do-not-eat-meat kind of avoidance – I’m always ready to be surprised.
During the recent trip to Bottle King, I saw there 2008 Mazzei Ser Lapo Chianti Classico Riserva on sale. I did like the label, like the name (Ser Lapo, somehow it sounds good for me), like the price ($16.98), plus I have a bottle of 1988 Mazzei waiting to be opened – and I didn’t drink Chianti in a while – do you think that this is enough reasons to get a bottle? Yep, so did I.
Last Wednesday night bottle was opened. Beautiful dark garnet color – intense and promising. On the nose, there is energy – acidity, earthiness, some intense cherry flavor. Good start, right? I take a sip and…it is flat. Nothing is happening on the palate. I know I’m drinking wine, but that’s all – even after intense swirling in the glass, not much is happening. Gasp. This is precisely what I was talking about before.
It happens to be that recently I came across some notes from the ”unhappy” taster on Twitter, where ”leaf day” was suggested as a possible cause for wines not tasting right. After doing some research, I found lots of interesting read on Biodynamics – this is where the terminology is coming from (there is a lot of interesting discussions in blogosphere on the subject – here is one of the links for you). There is also an app for iPhone/iPad, called Wine Tonight, which I downloaded after doing the research. As you can imagine, when you have a problem nowadays, you look for an app for it, right? Yep, I decided to consult the app. Here is what I got:
Okay, that explains it, right? Let’s leave biodynamics aside, as this is actually the post about Chianti, and let talk about the wine. I had to run some errands, so I left the bottle opened for about two hours. When I’m came back, I poured another glass of the Ser Lapo, and…should I stop here and say ”to be continued”? Nope, will be too cruel, I agree – let’s continue. Swirl, sip – and ”hello, gorgeous” moment. The wine opened up beautifully, offering lots of dark fruit, like cherries and blackberries, hint of dark chocolate, earthiness and bright acidity with serious tannins coming in the long finish. Very balanced, great wine giving you lots of pleasure (Drinkability: 8+).
The wine opened up even further the next day, so it definitely will evolve in the cellar. By the way, I consulted ”Wine Tonight” app out of curiosity again, and it told me that it was a ”root day” and drinking of the wine should be generally avoided. So if I would listen to that app, I would have to avoid drinking wine for two days in the row – I don’t think I like that app at all.
That actually concludes my story – and I wish you to have a ”fruit day” every time you have a glass of wine in front of you. Cheers!
Daily Glass: Perfect Simplicity
The idea behind “daily glass” posts was that they will be done, well, daily. This never materialized, so the Daily Glass posts take place really from occasion to occasion. Today happened to be one of those occasions – this wine was so nice and simple that I just had to write the “Daily Glass” post.
We brought this bottle of 2009 De Lavoie La Tourelle from Quebec, Canada last July. The wine is made out of St-Croix, Le Marechal Foch and Baco Noir grapes and boasts 12% ABV. It has hint of sour cherries and smokey almonds on the nose (the nose is reminiscent of a Pinot Noir). The wine has medium body and on the palate shows raspberries and gooseberries, hint of minerality and vivid acidity. The acidity lingers the longest, creating mouthwatering finish, uncharacteristic of a typical red wines – I’m sure this would be a perfect food wine, very simple and very easy to drink. Drinkability: 7+.
I have one problems with this wine though – I had only one bottle, and Canadian wines are hardly available in the States… That would be my only complaint. Cheers!
Do You Believe in Coincidences?
Yesterday, I was doing my usual search for the bottle to open – happens every time if I don’t have a plan upfront. Maybe this one? No, probably too young. That one? That’s a last one, maybe not now. Ahh, this one? No, not now – need a special moment. Then I finally reached out and grab a bottle of 2005 Castelmaure Grande Cuvee Corbieres Rouge – one of the two bottles I had. I was thinking about opening it many times before, but somehow the decision was always to wait until some other time.
This wine is a blend of mostly Syrah and Grenache (45% each) with the addition of Carignan. Opened the bottle, and the wine is beautiful from the get-go – deep, concentrated, showing good dark fruit, some cedar box, nice peppery mid-palate, great acidity and very balanced overall (Drinkability: 8). Next thing I’m going on Twitter to post the message about this wine and there I catch a glimpse of something while scrolling through the updates – Languedoc? #LanguedocDay?
It turns out that on November 10th, the world of social medial celebrated Languedoc Day – Languedoc is a wine region in the South of France. The wine I opened, Castelmaure, comes from Corbieres, which is one of the appellations within Languedoc! The great thing about Languedoc wines is that the appellation rules allow the making of a wide variety of wines from a wide variety of grapes, and due to the fact that the region is not as famous as Bordeaux or Burgundy, lots of great wines are available at a great QPR. I even wrote a post about Languedoc wines at The Art Of Life Magazine in the “Best Hidden Secrets of the Wine World series”.
Now, let’s go back to the subject of the post. At any given moment, I have about three hundred bottles of wine in the house, very few of those are from Languedoc (maybe 2-3 bottles at the most). I had no idea about #LanguedocDay before I selected the bottle. What is the probability of opening a bottle of wine from Languedoc specifically on that particular day, considering that we drink wine literally every day? I believe it is very (did I say “very”?) small. I don’t know how this worked, but somehow it did, so we happened to enjoy the right bottle of wine on the right day.
If you got any good “coincidences” stories, please share them! And no matter what was in your glass yesterday and what will be in it today, I hope you enjoy it. Cheers!
P.S. Don’t forget about PJ Wine Grand Tasting, which will take place next Friday, November 18th – if you want to taste Dom Perignon, Cristal, Krug, 2006 Cheval Blanc, 2000 Chateau d’Yquem, 1990 Mouton-Rothschild, 1985 Chateau Haut-Brion, 1952 CVNE Vina Real Gran Reserva and many other incredible wines, all in one night, click here to get your tickets and don’t forget to use your $10 discount code Talk-A-Vino.
Daily Glass: Amarone (Trader Joe’s Amarone, It Is)
I’m continuing the quest for the best bottle of my favorite wine, Amarone (the concept of the “best bottle” also assumes great QPR). Last time we talked about Le Ragose Amarone, where I had big hopes which didn’t materialize (you can find the post here). This time, let’s talk about Amarone from … Trader Joe’s.
In the last post, I told you about my discovery of value wines at Trader Joe’s in Massachusetts. Value Cabernet Sauvignon or Chardonnay – of course. But value Amarone? Until now, my idea of value Amarone was Valpolicella Ripasso, the wine made by running juice through leftover grape skins after actual Amarone was already pressed. In general, good Amarone are hard to find for under $40, and the typical range is $60 – $100 in a good wine store. And when it comes to price, same as for any other wines, the sky is the limit – the amazing Masi Amarone I mentioned in the post about Wolrdwide Tasting, would cost you about $150 (good luck finding it), and Giuseppe Quintarelli Amarone would set you back by about $350 (however, I found some rave reviews saying that this wine worth every penny).
Now forget everything I told you about the prices. Here are two examples that don’t fit into the ranges I mentioned before, thanks to Trader Joe’s. First, 2007 Pasqua Amarone, $18.99 in Trader Joe’s. While lacking the traditional Amarone nose of juicy raisins, this wine exhibited power and balance. Lots of dark fruit, some coffee notes, hint of earthiness, good acidity – very enjoyable wine. Drinkability: 7+.
I liked the 2008 Conte di Bregonzo Amarone della Valpolicella ($16.99) even more. Bright dark fruit, some jammy notes supported by overall balance, minerality and good acidity – great all-around package – very drinkable and leaving you craving for more. And QPR? At $16.99, do I need to even bother? Yep, I thought so. Drinkability: 8-.
Just to conclude – yes, Trader Joe’s is a place for great value wines. Even more importantly, it is a place for excellent Amarone with amazing QPR.
What are you waiting for? Have you being to Trader Joe’s wine department already? You owe it to yourself to find the nearest Trader Joe’s with the wine section in it, and go enjoy it yourself – you can thank me later. Cheers!
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