Wine reviews.
Wonderful, almost rich looking label. Upon drinking the wine, the label held more interest for us than the wine. First sip shows a bit harshness but finishes slightly smooth. The taste seems devoid of any interesting character. We rate this C.
I was very surprised when I first took a sip of this wine. It shows character, not dull, very interesting, sort of like talking to someone from Chicago, just a bit brassy. In fact you just might start up a conversation with your wine glass. I score this wine a solid B. I asked my wife to go out and buy another bottle and I seldom make that request.
We recently sampled a Rendition 2009, Alexander Valley Zinfandel. The flavor seemed on par with what I expect paint remover to taste. It was very harsh, totally lacking any subtly and any detectable positive flavor. There was absolutely no enjoyment from sipping this backward off “wine”. Two Buck Chuck is a step up from this rasp drippings.
Our neighbors across the street called me in February, 2009 to tell me they were dissatisfied with a new bottle of wine. The husband refused to drink it. I was asked if I might want to try as the bottle was only a half glass shy of full. I said yes thinking that at the very least the wine could go into a crock pot in place of water to add some modicum of distinction. That evening I poured a half wine glass and tried the wine out. It did not taste like anything I had ever tried before, quite bad, almost disgusting. I let my wife try it and she poured her glass out after one sip. When I first took a sip I think I detected a slight olive flavor but that was as good as it got. We score wines being average with a 50 score. This wine was below Trader Joe’s two buck chuck, way below. We score this wine as undrinkable with a score of 5 out of 100. It is not even good enough for crock pot use and if you have a bottle, take it back to the store where you purchased it and ask for your money back.
We have no idea how much our neighbors paid for this bottle. We have tried Sutter Home wines in the past and this bottle seems way below our past experience. It seemed to me that they tried to blend this wine with some other ingredients and totally blew it. It might be possble that the bottle, we sampled, was not stored properly or had a defective cork but we rank wines as they come to us as we can not determine prior handling.
We tend to buy wine at Trader Joe’s. We now make it a practice to ask one of the knowledgeable clerks what wine must we take home, their top pick. January 10th we visited the Brea, California store and asked this question. The clerk told us that his pick was Inheritance, a Petite Sirah. The year was 2006 and was selling one penny shy of twelve dollars. We had this wine while watching the football payoffs. The host of the party was taken back by how special this wine tasted. We score this wine over 90, probably 93.
An outrageous review at wine library tv web site, Episode #523 covers this wine. This wine is the third bottle reviewed, can be found here: http://tv.winelibrary.com/2008/08/20/a-tasting-of-value-petite-sirah-episode-523/?cp=11
We rank this wine 91. We purchased this at Trader Joes for around $20. The flavor is simply a delight. There is no detectable harshness just full well defined flavor. Winery is located in Napa Valley, California, USA.