A Special Occasion Cab and Corkage Fees

Earlier this month, your Two Wine Nuts had a special occasion to celebrate so we pulled out a “special occasion” bottle of 1992 Silver Oak Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley and headed to a favorite restaurant.

Yes, you are allowed to bring your own wine to a restaurant! But doing so can often start a ritual with the wait staff that we have only learned through experience.

First, be aware that you will likely pay what is called a “Corkage Fee.” This is usually $10-$15 and it supposedly covers the service cost of the waiter opening and pouring your wine, the use of the wine glasses, and the fact that you aren’t buying any of the wine in the restaurant’s cellar. So suddenly your “free bottle” isn’t really free anymore. Unless you share.

Some wait staff is more subtle than others, but all that we have encountered when bringing our own bottle have made it clear that they would love to try a sip of our wine. The first time this happened, one of your Wine Nuts was rather offended. Eventually the waitress’s hints got embarrassing and we finally told her to get a glass just so that we could get back to enjoying our meal. We shared just a sip’s worth and tipped accordingly.

With some experience, though, we have come to expect that we will be sharing at least an ounce or so of our wine with our wait staff. The negotiation usually starts with us declining a wine list since we have brought our own bottle. This is followed by a discussion about what we have brought. At some point between this and when the wine is being poured, the waiter or waitress will start showing enthusiasm and curiosity about the wine, asking questions, making hypothetical comparisons to other known wines, etc. At this point we offer that if they would like to get a glass, we would be happy to let them sample it.

This is where you can decide whether or not you want to pay the corkage fee. A small pour (one ounce or so) and you will likely still see that extra $10-$15 added to your bill. A bigger pour – one that allows at least two full sips or perhaps a little sharing with others in the kitchen – could very well lead to the corkage fee being waived. Of course, this is entirely dependent on the wait staff, the restaurant, the “specialness” of the wine, and the camaraderie you have managed to establish with the wait staff over the course of the meal.

So with all that, how was our special occasion Cabernet? Pretty darn great!

Silver Oak is known for one thing and one thing only: Cabernet Sauvignon. They have two wineries in California – one in the Napa Valley and one a little farther north in Alexander Valley. The wine is known as big and well-crafted and is priced accordingly. Although we bought the 1992 Napa Valley Cab probably 10 years ago for about $50, it is now selling online for about $130ish. So yes, our corkage fee was waived.

And was it worth $130?? Probably not. But it was very, very good. Silver Oak builds its wines to age and this one seemed to have aged rather nicely. Honestly, though, we suspect we may have waited a year or two too long to open it and we didn’t give the wine nearly enough time to breathe when we finally did.

The wine definitely changed over the hour and a half or so that we ate dinner. It got fruiter and more full. But unlike a younger Cabernet Sauvignon, this 16 year old Cab was extraordinarily smooth from the very first sip, lacking the tannins that make your mouth pucker. It was less fruity and more subtle than a typical California-style Cabernet, making it taste and feel more like a French version. Overall, it was a great wine for the price we originally paid for it. And our next “special occasion” wine will probably be decanted.

A great Rioja Crianza

A local wine store often hosts wine tasting nights. This is common and a great way to try new and oddball stuff without a big cash outlay. And it’s smart business for the wine shop because if you find something you like, chances are good you will buy at least one bottle to enjoy at home. And this is how we ended up with a tasty bottle of 2003 Rioja Vega Crianza.

We knew just a little about Riojas when we first sampled this wine. We knew Rioja wine was from Spain and we thought it only came in red. We were right about Spain and wrong about the red part.

Rioja – like most European wine – is named for a region, not a grape. Rioja is a region in the northern part of Spain near the French border. Rioja wines can be red (tinto), white (blanco) or rosé (rosado), although most Rioja wines are red. Also like many European wines, a Rioja is comprised of more than one grape. The red version is usually a blend of 3 or 4 grapes with the Tempranillo grape being the most prominent. Tempranillo grapes are very dark, almost black. They tend to produce wines that are somewhat light with a red fruit flavor – like strawberry and cherry.

OK, so we now know what Rioja is. What does Crianza mean? Crianza is one of four categories that tell you something about how the red Rioja was made. Crianza is the second category. The first category is Rioja. This means the wine spent less than one year in an oak barrel. Crianza indicates the wine was aged for at least two years total and at least one of those years was in an oak barrel. The third category is Rioja Reserva. It is the same as Crianza but instead of a minimum of two years of aging, it has a three year minimum. The final category is Rioja Gran Reserva. These are wines that were aged at least two years in oak and three years in the bottle before being released for sale.

Enough of that! What about this wine?

As would be expected from being 50% Tempranillo grapes, this Crianza was a dark, rich, purple color. It smelled like a really good Zinfandel. There were some whiffs of dark cherry as well as blackberry and a woodiness that no doubt came from being aged in an oak barrel for at least one year. Taste-wise, our notes say “bright fruit, puckery, easy to sip.” We deemed it as lighter than a Zinfandel but heavier than a Chianti. And it went great with our Canadian bacon pizza.

We bought the Rioja Vega (that’s the name of the winery) at our local wine shop for $12. Although we had it with pizza, it could easily stand up to heartier and fancier meals. We liked this wine a lot and will be going back for more once we work through our stash.

A Cabernet Sauvignon from Idaho

One of our early and tightly held philosophies about wine is that a good wine is any wine that you like. It is very easy – especially if you are new to wine -- to get swept up by professionals and scores and flowery adjectives and wait for someone else to tell you whether or not you should like a particular wine. But the fact is, it doesn’t really matter if you like the cheap stuff or the sweet stuff or the bottle-capped stuff or the boutique stuff or the status stuff. It doesn’t really matter if you like to dump a packet of sugar in your wine or pour it over ice cubes. If you like it, own it. They are your taste buds; make ‘em happy.

Having said all that, your Two Wine Nuts feel there is definite value in reading reviews and getting recommendations. When you find someone who likes stuff you like, they can be a great resource for new wine discoveries and adventures. Hopefully, if you have found yourself agreeing with our reviews here you have come back for more. And if you have disagreed, we understand if you moved on to others’ opinions.

This all came to mind as we recently sipped a wine highly recommended by a friend. It turns out we like different stuff. And that’s just fine.

We have had some very tasty Idaho wines in the past. Sadly, it was long before we were taking notes. Nevertheless, when a friend recommended a 2003 Sawtooth Cabernet Sauvignon from Idaho, we were eager to give it a try.

This Cabernet had something of an artificial fruit smell, along the lines of a grape Popsicle. Taste-wise, it was a good, basic Cabernet Sauvignon. But it was a little tangy and a little bitter and had an abrupt finish. The taste just sort of disappeared as soon as the wine did. To its credit, the wine got fruitier and fuller as we ate it with our steak dinner. But for $12.99 (at Fred Meyer), we felt we could do better. At $6-$8 we would be more enthusiastic. So if we find Sawtooth on sale, we’ll happily buy some and share it with our friend.

A Pizza Wine Zinfandel

In a previous post, we recommended a Cabernet Sauvignon by Black Mountain Vineyard. We found online reviews supporting their Zinfandel so we decided to give it a try. Verdict: So far you can’t go wrong with Black Mountain!

The 2005 Black Mountain Vineyard Cramer Ridge Zinfandel was a fun, everyday wine. It had a dark ruby red color and lots of cherry flavor. We picked up some black pepper taste somewhere in the middle, and the finish had a slight sour cherry flavor. It wasn’t a particularly complicated or bold wine. It was young and tangy and easy to drink.

Like its Cabernet brother, the Black Mountain Zinfandel would be a great pizza wine. It would also be a great wine for those folks who want to drink one glass of red wine a day for health without breaking the bank. For just $6 at Trader Joe’s, the Cramer Ridge Zin is a great buy.

New to us: White Merlot

Some of our best wine finds have been as a result of eavesdropping. Our first was when we overheard some people in a restaurant raving about a Cabernet Sauvignon called Silver Oak. Being very new to wine, we did not realize as we scribbled a note on a napkin that Silver Oak is a rather upper-end trophy wine that is not for beginners. Tasty indeed but very much a special-occasion wine for people who have been around the stuff for awhile.

So with a good track record and a sense of adventure, we waltzed over to Wal-Mart after overhearing a nearby diner rave about the White Merlot to be found there. We had heard of White Zinfandel but not White Merlot so we were very curious.

A word about these white wines made from red grapes. Yes, Zinfandel comes in red, too! Actually, Zinfandel is traditionally a red wine but it was made commercially famous in the white (or, more technically, pink) version. How does a red grape make a white wine? It’s all in the skins.

Grape skins give wine its color (among other things). After grapes are picked and the juice is squeezed out of them, the winemaker decides whether to toss away the skins that are left behind or let the skins hang out in the juice for a while. When making white wines, the green skins are tossed away almost immediately. When making red wines, the red skins may linger with the juice for several weeks. So what about these pink wines like White Zinfandel or Rosé or White Merlot? The red grapes are pressed and the skins hang out with the juice for less than a day. Just enough time to give some flavor and a hint of reddish color, resulting in that pretty rosy pink.

As promised, Wal-Mart offered a 2006 Beringer White Merlot. How did we like it? We didn’t. But, we need to say we are not big fans of White Zinfandel either. If you like White Zins, you might like White Merlot.

The White Merlot’s color was its best feature; we should have taken a photo before we opened the bottle. It was a pretty, light red color similar to a cough drop. The nose (smell) was sweet and a bit alcohol-y. It reminded us of a drugstore perfume. As for the taste, it was very thin and did not have much of a finish; the taste did not linger at all. The flavor was sweet like a flat wine cooler. And in fact, that might be how we would most enjoy this White Merlot – mixed with 7-Up as a wine cooler or sangria for a patio party. At $5.49 at Wal-Mart it was a fun experiment but we won’t be going back for more.

A nice red blend for under $10

Thanks to a recent wine class, your Two Wine Nuts discovered a new everyday red that will go with a variety of meals.

CMS by Hedges in Columbia Valley (Washington) is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Syrah – hence the C-M-S name. According to the back label, this 2006 red is 52% Cabernet Sauvignon, 44% Merlot, and just 4% Syrah. This is pretty typical for blends, in that one or two varietals are dominant and the rest are marginal additions to help add color or flavor or body.

The back label also has an unusual explanation. It says: “This wine may occasionally show a deposit of natural tartaric acid crystals, a result of Hedges’ winemaking philosophy of less intervention, and less filtration of naturally occurring grape components. They are totally harmless.”

As hobby winemakers, we can tell you we had these crystals form in our early vino efforts and had to offer similar explanations. The crystals look like little floaty things and they will somewhat disappear if you shake the bottle a bit before opening. But that is purely for aesthetics. The crystals won’t hurt you nor will they impact the flavor of the wine. However, your Two Wine Nuts view the presence of these crystals as more of a sign of cheap (on a commercial scale) wine making and less an indication of organic, green methods. There is an easy way to prevent the crystals from forming. The wine simply needs to be cooled considerably (close to freezing) for a week or two during the winemaking process. This causes the crystals to collect at the bottom of the container/vat allowing the wine to be siphoned into a new container leaving the crystals behind. Homemade efforts may not allow the space or resources to stabilize the wine to this level. However, we feel commercial wines should.

That being said, we like this wine! At $9.99 at Trader Joe’s, CMS is an accessible wine for sipping or a casual dinner with friends. It smells primarily like a Cabernet Sauvignon – berries, some cherry, some plum. Taste-wise, it is not as heavy and full-bodied as a Cab but it is easy to sip for folks who consider themselves wine drinkers. However, this wine might be too astringent for the occasional wine drinker or for those who much prefer whites over reds.

A great $5 Fumé Blanc

While shopping in Trader Joe’s not long ago, one of your Two Wine Nuts was on the look out for Rock Rabbit Sauvignon Blanc. We have yet to find it locally but we are not giving up! In the meantime, while discussing our search woes with a TJ staff member, it was suggested that we try a 2006 Trader Joe’s Coastal Fumé Blanc instead. Always up for a wine adventure, we paid the $4.99 and waited for an opportunity to give it a whirl.

So why was a Fumé Blanc suggested when what we were looking for was a Sauvignon Blanc? Well, believe it or not, they are the same thing. Sauvignon Blanc is the real name for the grape that originally came from the Bordeaux region of France. Fumé Blanc is a name for the same thing, made up by none other than Robert Mondavi.

Apparently back in the late 1960’s, Mondavi came up with a rather tasty Sauvignon Blanc. But at the time, Sauvignon Blancs had a pretty bad reputation. Being the marketing genius he is, Mondavi decided to name his new wine something completely unknown. He came up with the new name Fumé Blanc, referring to a French wine appellation called Pouilly-Fumé. New name, no baggage. Now Mondavi’s a bazillionaire and lots of white wine drinkers have been confused in his wake.

And how was the $5 bottle of Trader Joe’s Fumé Blanc? Really, not bad at all. We decided it was a good porch wine: nice to sip casually with friends, just hanging out on the patio, not trying to match food or make a statement. The Coastal Fumé Blanc had a sweet smell of apricots and grapes but the taste was more acidic. It was a dry wine with a sharp tropical flavor that was somewhat pineappley. The finish was somewhat metallic. So overall, while this was not a fantastic wine, we consider it a great buy at just $5. We plan to keep a few bottles on hand to enjoy during the summer.

The Original Pizza Wine

Years ago, before Two Buck Chuck, your Two Wine Nuts discovered their first-ever pizza wine. We define Pizza Wine as a wine (usually red) that is inexpensive, easy to drink, inoffensive, and appropriate to serve with pizza, hot dogs on the grill, or any other casual meal. The wine that inspired the category was Fat Cat Cabernet Sauvignon by Black Mountain Vineyards, sold exclusively at Trader Joe’s.

A few nights ago we had pizza so we went to our go-to pizza wine. It was a 2005 Fat Cat and we were satisfied by our choice. It certainly wasn’t an amazing, oh-my-gosh wine but it served its purpose well. It was exceptionally sippable and it livened up with our pizza, especially the tomato sauce.

This Cabernet Sauvignon had everything a Cab should have: some bright red fruitiness, some oak, some tannin, some alcohol, some lingering finish. It just did not have any of these things in big enough quantities to make it a great wine. The Fat Cat is not a complex, complicated wine, but it is inoffensive and sippable and only $6 at Trader Joe’s. We recommend it as an everyday Cabernet. Online rumors suggest the Black Mountain Zinfandel is also pretty tasty, so stay tuned!

A Nice Second-Label Chardonnay

Hunting for a fruity, non-oaky Chardonnay, we recently picked up a bottle of a 2005 Hawk Crest Chardonnay. We know Hawk Crest because we know Stag’s Leap, so we hoped it was a safe bet. And it was.

So how are Stag’s Leap and Hawk Crest related? Hawk Crest is the more entry-level label from Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars in Napa Valley. Stag’s Leap is known for rather elevated wines at correspondingly elevated prices. If you want a $50 Cabernet Sauvignon, consider Stag’s Leap. Understanding, however, that not everyone considers a $50 bottle of wine a reasonable expense, Stag’s Leap developed this secondary line of wines intended to be approachable, affordable, and drinkable when you buy them.

Stag’s Leap isn’t the only winery doing this. There are lots of wineries out there who have what is called a “second label.” Mondavi has one called Woodbridge. Geyser Peak’s is called Canyon Road. Well-known in the Pacific Northwest, Chateau St. Michelle has a second label called Columbia Crest. Liberty School – which now is a stand-alone wine – first started out as a secondary wine to Caymus. Even the extraordinarily fancy-pants winery Opus One is in the seconds game with Overture. For some, having a second label is a way to expand their market. For others, it’s a way to profitably sell wine that is OK but not up to the standards of their higher-end brand.

So back to the 2005 Hawk Crest Chardonnay. Your Two Wine Nuts are not big fans of Chardonnay done in the traditional California style. Meaning, we don’t like a ton of butter and vanilla and the taste of basically licking the inside of an oak barrel. But, Chardonnay can be crafted in a less woody way, allowing the fruit and crispness to show through. The 2005 Hawk Crest achieved this nicely.

We first noted that the color was not nearly as yellow as many Chardonnays. Instead, the Hawk Crest was lighter and more straw-colored. It had a nicely light smell, not huge and in-your-face (or, perhaps, in-your-nose). We caught whiffs of sweet vanilla (like ice cream), honeysuckle, and honey butter. Taste-wise, we were pleased to discover a nice crispness and sharpness to the Chardonnay. It still had a smoothness and creaminess to it, but it didn’t roll around in our mouths with a heaviness typical of many Chardonnays.

Overall, we would say the 2005 Hawk Crest Chardonnay is a good go-to Chardonnay if you don’t like the heavy, buttery oakiness found in many other versions. Although we found our bottle at BevMo, we’ve seen Hawk Crest in places like World Market and wine shops. And at just $9.99 per bottle, it’s hard to beat. Compared to the Oyster Bay Chardonnay we reviewed on February 3, we would say we like the Hawk Crest a bit better due its more pronounced fruitiness and better price.

Vineyard update

It’s been quite a while since the winemaker of your Two Wine Nuts gave an update about what is currently happening on the fermenting front.

Our 2006 wines are Riesling and Pinot Noir. The Riesling grapes we normally buy from a Willamette Valley vineyard tend to produce a very acidic wine – think something closer to orange juice than apple juice. Well, in ’06, the grapes finally got ripe enough to be more gentle. It’s still not a really sweet wine, but it’s more likely to be sipped in the afternoon than with bacon-n-eggs in the morning.

The Pinot Noir is an interesting story. In May of ’06, the Two Wine Nuts went wine tasting. We found a gentleman pouring wine with a picture of his vineyard behind him. The poor vines were growing out of what looked like softball-sized rocks with the occasional patch of dirt thrown in – very similar to the soil where we have planted our 54 Riesling vines.

After some serious talk, we convinced the man to sell us some grapes. His vineyard actually has very rocky soil in one area and more standard soil in another, so we took grapes from both. The wine from the less rocky soil ended up fruity and lively, but with very little backbone. The more rocky soil wine is still waking up – it’s rather dark and brooding at the moment. Good, but hidden. Ah, but blend them together 50-50, and you have a real winning wine, even now. I can’t wait to see what happens with more aging.

In 2007, we’ve got 3 wines working. First is another Riesling, this time from a different vineyard that tends to give more standard flavors like melon, peach, and pear. Second is a Syrah which is very dark at this point and really just needs some time to figure out what it’s going to be when it grows up. And third is my first “dessert wine.” It is a faux-ice wine made from fractionally thawed Riesling juice. Yum!

Our vineyard is sure taking its sweet time growing. After the 2007 growing season, only about 6 or 8 vines grew to a height where I can let them branch off. This means they will produce grapes during 2009. The rest of the vines still need a year to grow their trunks. There were also about 5 that I had to replace from scratch. Those won’t even have a chance to produce grapes until ’10, and are more likely to have to wait until ’11. Sigh…

At $10, this Cabernet is over-priced

In two previous posts, we have reviewed some new offerings from Cost Plus World Market. Presumably in an attempt to introduce people to some traditional California wines at great prices, World Market has recently introduced Chard-on-yeah! (see November 8, 2007 post), Zin-fat-u-ation (see December 17, 2007 post), and Cab-u-lous. Having now sampled all three we can definitively say we are unimpressed at best, disappointed at worst.

Cab-u-lous is billed as “…the way one feels when experiencing a perfect Cab.” Cute enough. And we would agree that a perfect Cabernet Sauvignon is indeed a fabulous experience. Sadly, this wine won’t get you even close.

The 2005 Cab-u-lous had a heavy plum nose that mostly overcame the big whiffs of alcohol. A perfect Cab will smell of blackberries and jam and likely some woodiness. It will smell deep and rich. This one, well, we would sum it up as a mediocre house wine with a thin, burnt oak flavor. Honestly, it tasted like a cheap Cabernet which made us conclude it is over-priced at the usually consumer-friendly price of $9.99. At $5 or $6 we would have felt our money had been better spent.

Perhaps our biggest disappointment with these three varietals offered by World Market is that folks new to wine will sample them with the assumption that they are representative of Chardonnay, Zinfandel, and Cabernet Sauvignon. In our opinion, the Chardonnay comes closest to tasting like its namesake but the other two sadly miss the mark.

Great, cheap drip catcher

There are any number of wine gadgets available these days, solving all sorts of real or imagined wine woes. If you are like us, you have yet to master the quick wrist twist at the end of your pour to catch wine drips before they dribble down the neck of the bottle and onto your linens. There are several ways to solve this problem:

• Learn the wrist twist. Try to give the bottle a quick twist as you lift upward after pouring. This is effective if you can do it; dangerous for both the glass and your tablecloth if you can’t. We can’t.



• Keep a napkin handy to wipe the neck after each pour. Effective but not necessarily elegant.



• Tie a napkin or towel around the neck. Again, effective but not attractive.



• Buy a drip catcher.
  
  

There are several varieties of drip catchers. For years, we used one that was simply a silver plastic collar with thick felt inside. Just slip the collar over the neck of the bottle and the felt catches the drips. It looks nice enough and it works great – as long as the collar fits over the neck. Bottle necks vary so much, however, about one-third of the time we found our collar was too small and rendered useless.

Solving this problem, we recently spotted a collar that came in two magnetized pieces. Simply pull the two halves apart and place around any sized bottle neck. The magnets hold the collar in place. While nice in theory, we elected not to buy one of these for a few reasons. First, it was expensive, along the lines of $30. Second, it was heavy. While making it feel substantial and perhaps worth $30, we wondered what impact a pound of metal on the neck of a wine bottle would have on our ability to pour. Undoubtedly, the bottle would feel top heavy and likely awkward.

You Two Wine Nuts have a much cheaper, lighter method. We use tiny hair scrunchies to catch our wine drips. We wish we could take credit for the ingenuity of this solution. Instead, it was passed along to us by a very creative relative. For just $1.50 at Wal-Mart, you can buy a 42-pack of elastic fabric bands in a variety of colors. They slip right over neck of any sized wine bottle and sit quietly on the neck absorbing drips. They are easily rinsed or tossed out guilt-free after repeated use. NOTE: Be sure you do not get the sparkly versions. The extra glitter makes the bands less absorbent.

A good California-light Chardonnay

As mentioned in previous posts, your Two Wine Nuts are not big fans of typical California Chardonnays. For many years, we thought that all Chardonnays were thick, heavy, oaky, and buttery; indeed, that's how most California-style Chardonnays turn out. But there are actually some Chards out there that are...fruity! Most of the time, they are French wines, but more and more producers are discovering there is a growing American market for a lighter-touch Chardonnay. Having had some very positive experiences with other offerings from Oyster Bay Wines, we picked up a bottle of 2005 Oyster Bay Chardonnay recently and gave it a try a few nights ago with friends.

Oyster Bay Wines come from the Marlborough area of New Zealand's south island. Our favorite Sauvignon Blancs come from New Zealand, so we were eager to see what they would do with a Chardonnay.

Somewhat surprisingly, the Oyster Bay Chardonnay was not as fruity as we were hoping. It actually smelled very much like a typical Chardonnay -- lots of oak and butter and a hint of vanilla bean. Taste-wise, it is best described as a much tamer version of a California Chardonnay. There was butter, there was oak, and it had a creamy mouthfeel. But it was not nearly as heavy and in-your-face as typical California versions. This was a very good thing. While it didn't have the fruitiness we were hoping for, a friend who was tasting with us said, "I don't really care for Chardonnays and I could drink quite a bit of this!" So if you like California-style Chardonnays in concept but are turned off by how heavy they are, give this New Zealand one a try.

We bought the Oyster Bay Chardonnay at BevMo for $12.99, which is pretty reasonable but we'd be more excited to find it on sale for closer to $10. We will likely buy a couple more bottles the next time we see it, but we are still on the lookout for a fruitier, less oaky Chardonnay.

We hoped for more from this Rhône blend

Several months ago, some friends served us a tasty, interesting French wine. Your Two Wine Nuts were very enthusiastic about it and quickly jotted down the label information. We were thrilled to find the wine available at Cost Plus World Market, so we snatched up a couple bottles at the very happy price of $7.99. Weirdest thing -- it hasn't been nearly as good the second or third times.

The 2004 Corbieres Les Deux Rives is a blend of four red Rhône varietals: Grenache (40%), Syrah (30%), Mourvedre (20%), and Carignan (10%). We remember it as being wonderfully earthy with lots of berry fruit. What we have tasted in both bottles we brought home has been lighter and less complex. Surprisingly, the nose is mostly alcohol and unripe blackberries. Sort of a bitter fruity smell. We feared our first bottle was corked (see February 17 post), so we waited until we had the second bottle before taking notes. Either both bottles were corked, or this is just how this wine smells.

As for the taste, we did get some of the expected earthiness as well as some smoke and cigar. But its lightness and somewhat short finish surprised us. Perhaps if we had not had the first bottle at the friends' house, we would be more excited about this wine. And perhaps the lively conversation, good food, and happy times spent with those friends added flavor to the wine that night (a very real possibility since wine is such a sensory experience).

So our recommendation is, if you are looking to try a Rhône blend without breaking the bank, give this one a shot for $7.99. It's not bad; it's just not what we remember it being.