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Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Sometimes the mystery is best left alone - aka the "?"-able wine

Have you seen this wine? Have you tried this wine? What's the name of this wine? ???

As I have mentioned previously, I love to try new wines. New varietals, new blends, new vintages...whatever, it's all good. If a particular wine is not good, I usually don't write or talk about it, because, why focus on the negative? But, just like taste in food, we may all have different tastes in wine. So, I am going to take a step into the unknown, and tell you about this one, which was a dud for us.

I picked up this bottle of ? at Trader Joe's last weekend. I apologize that I don't remember the winery/vintage,etc as I tossed the bottle. Yeah that's right - tossed it. It sounded interesting as it was a red blend, cab and syrah - I think. It was only $7 or $8, so no big deal if it wasn't great. Sunday evening we opened it while getting ingredients out for dinner. A little swirl, a little sniff of cherry and vanilla, then I took a sip. Nothing. I swirled a bit more, and took another sip. Without saying a word, I handed my glass to Scott. (I didn't want to bias what he thought.) Scott tasted it and said he didn't think there was anything going on. We decided to let it breathe in the decanter for awhile, and went along with starting dinner. (A lot of times, as the wine opens up, it's flavor becomes more apparent.) After 30 minutes or so, we tried it again. Still, absolutely nothing. Again, I swirled, tried a bite of bread, etc. but, we decided the wine had even less flavor than the first sip. Life is to short to drink bad wine, so we opened a bottle of a tried and true merlot. (Review on that next.) So what is that "?" on the label all about? Our best guess is that it is there to leave you guessing - should it have some taste? what should it taste like? why are you drinking this when there are so many other (better) options out there in wine?

I'm curious if anyone has tried this wine and had a better experience. Let me know if you have.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think I would have skipped that one judging by the label alone. Thanks for taking one for the team, M!

Kirsten said...

wow...I haven't seen that at my Trader Joe's...but I would have tried it, so thanks for saving me! :)

Is it a private label thing like the Trader Joe's blends that vary by year and even month it seems? I have had AMAZING $2.99 Trader Joe's French Market Cabernet and then have had some that must be immediately thrown away they are so vile.

Any luck with that darling, yummy, cheap Shiraz from Sprouts? I haven't been able to find it at any locations! :(

Mo said...

Kirsten,

This was a label from a vineyard in CA. (I just can't recall which one -but it was one that I had heard of.)

I have tried every Sprouts in the valley for that yummy and cheap shiraz. Bummer, we should have bought a case!

The Food Hunter said...

I bought this one too and I agree not much going on. I wish I would've seen you're post first.