Don ... is Back!

After a long hiatus ... I was able to sweet Talk Don back into a wine review ... it won't be weekly, but we are shooting for once a month!  So now we are just drinking the wine ... with less pressure!!

My New Years resolution…

Have you tried any of these wines?  The Prisoner, Earthquake, Skinny Girl, Layer Cake, Yellow Tail…or any of a 1,000 other similar brands? Do you know what they have in common? That was a hint by the way, here is another…"Sherman set the Wayback to the mid 70’s". Starsky and Hutch just ended and Welcome Back Kotter is next up.  During the commercial break Ricardo Montalban sidles up ever so elegantly in his white three piece suit next to a Chrysler Cordoba, motioning us to open the door and experience the “Rich Corinthian Leather” within. Did you guess? Fact of the matter is... there is no such thing as “Rich Corinthian Leather”. It was simply a marketing phrase spun by some clever fellow at an Ad agency (perhaps Darren Stevens of McMann and Tate) to help move units. That same creative marketing is what the wines mentioned above are all about. They are clever brands, fabricated for the quick sale. The grapes are bought en masse from multiple vineyards, homogeneously blended to appeal to a humongous consumer market and could all be described in five words or less; Dark fruit, Vanilla, and Cocoa for reds; Buttery, Oaky, Vanilla for whites. They don’t reflect the soil or climatic characteristics of any particular vineyard, they have near zero nuance and are on a whole as boring as C-SPAN.

Why say all this…because of my New Years resolution of course. Drink (emphasis) and Write about compelling wines. Wines that reflect a place, tell a story and bring a little sumpin', sumpin' to the palate. You may have to look beyond Kroger or Big Al’s house of booze to find them and they may take a shekel or two more from your purse to purchase, but they will be worth it. Life is short, lets enjoy some interesting wines this year and have some fun…whaddya say?

The 2005 Chateau Talbot is NOT a silky smooth bordeaux.  It IS an elegant representation of the gravelly riverfront soil of Saint-Julien in which the grapes were grown.  It's garnet in color with Ruby edges, has a dusty rose and blackberry with a hint of strawberry nose.  It has a dry tannic mouthfeel with tastes of leather, raspberries, gravel and cedar.

Life is Short.  Enjoy the Wine.

DM