Lindeman's Bin 85 Pinot Grigio

Origin: South Eastern Australia
Price: GIFT, probably the usual $10 - $12 according to the internet.
Vintage: 2011
Date drunk: April 17th, 2012

 

d.: Damn.

g.: This is going to be a boring review. It's better when I hate stuff. I even chugged a bit to see if I could muster hate, but it's just not in me. I could probably be funny if I kept that up, but it seems like a lot of effort.

d.: It's like the beach. Not like the bad parts of beach, like those little sand hopping insects that you can't see until it's too late. Or like dudes driving dune buggies or getting cut under your fingernail by dune grass when you untie your shoes.

g.: I've had wine that tastes like having to pee on the beach in the dark, and that shit sucks.

d.: This, though, is like bonfires and waking up in a tent hearing the waves just outside the door. This is piping plovers running along the shore. [ED. NOTE: RHYMING]

g.: Oh I got it, it's like that extra Oland's you forgot you hid in the sand and you can probably use to barter for toilet paper.

BUT THE WINE:

It's good. It tastes like a bouquet of flowers mixed with some sugar, which could be good boiled in hot water like tea, but this is better because... alcohol. It's pretty and fruity but not over the top. It's subtle and serious, which you might not expect me to like, but I'm secretly into that kind of thing. Verdict: decent, drinkable, makes me boring.

Strewn - Gewürztraminer

Origin: Ontario

Price: $12.95

Vintage: 2009

Date drunk: March 16th, 2012

g.: Smells like pepper.

d.: There's that little prickliness.

g.: Isn't this wine made out of cacti or something? Or have I been misled by that one brand with a picture of a cactus on the label? That seems plausible. Okay, I took a sip and my mouth unhinged like a snake. I heard it click.

*Second sip* It's reaaalllyyyyy dryyyyy.

d.: The taste has the same prickliness as the smell. It's like drinking cactus. If there were like a really cool not lethally poisonous snake, but a little bit poisonous snake, and it was turned into wine, it would probably taste like this.

g.: So is that related to how I almost got lockjaw back there? I bet it is.

d.: It wasn't on purpose, so it must be.

g.: Okay, real talk: it's kind of spicy and I'm always into that, but it's drryyyyy. Like the "extra dry" 1.5L bottle of Sawmill Creek wine I bought by accident that time and actually physically COULD NOT DRINK. That is the only time that's happened. It was that bad, and I've had more horrific bottles of wine than anyone could ever imagine. So the moral of this story is, I will drink grape juice and sugar fermented in a dollar store tupperware container... as long as it isn't too dry.

No offense, Strewn Gewürztraminer.

Seaglass - Riesling

Origin: California

Price: $13.95

Vintage: 2010

Date drunk: March 3rd, 2012

g.: I tried to smell this and got wine on my face. How does that even happen?

*Second smell* I made a sound I can't even spell. I think it was "hrrrnnnnn." Despite this, the ocean theme makes me really hope I like it. Everyone loves sea glass, right? What ocean-adjacent kid didn't spend time collecting the broken remnants of beach parties? So, full disclosure, we bought this because of the name, and because of the 20 other wines we turned down due to their condescending marketing targeted at women ("ge-wurtz-whaaaat? I like to shop!"), or their lame slogans. Tough crowd.

*SIP* Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh it tastes like if you put the Gulf of St. Lawrence inside a swimming pool full of dogs.

Also it went up my nose. This is not going well.

d.: *sips* Oh, that's difficult.

g.: Well put.

d.: It's sweet like the candy you find in the backseat of your parents' Lada the day after the Pictou Lobster Carnival.

g.: It's like a candy corn on your closet floor 5 months after Halloween. In a pool full of dogs. And a dumptruck full of sugar. I think I'm seriously damaging my pancreas.

d.: Who would put their sugar in a dumptruck?

g.: Just about everyone.

[I could barely read my own handwriting on that one. To recap:

- TOO SWEET

- OWWWW]

Cupcake - Chardonnay

I'd just like to say that we had to go to another liquor store to get our cheap selections this time, because we drank all the wine at our neighbourhood store. All the wine that didn't have laser-printer clip-art labels affixed with a glue gun.

Origin: California

Price: $14.95

Vintage: 2010

Date drunk: March 3rd, 2012

g.: So this wine is apparently made in a place called Livermore, US. I think this is misleading, at best, in terms of my bodily health. Anyway, this better taste like fucking cupcakes.

*sniffs* I'm going to be disappointed.

*sips* OH. It tastes like it should come from an apple juice can.

d.: It has a full kind of taste. I wouldn't say round; it's more like a rectangular prism that has rounded edges.

g.: That's how I liked to design websites in 2002. Okay, so the name of this wine is completely messing up my ability to describe it as anything other than dessert. I taste.... icing. What the shit is wrong with my brain.

d.: Fermented grape icing.

g.: *horrified* Cool, I'm gonna go barf up the actual cupcake I ate today, which tastes exactly zero like this wine. Zero. Not cupcakes.

d.: Maybe you've just been eating the wrong cupcakes.

g.: No, I've been eating the not disgusting cupcakes..... who the fuck am I kidding, I would eat any cupcake with booze in it. Next week I actually for real have a plan to eat a rum and coke flavoured one so I can complete a cupcake shop stamp card. I don't mess around. Okay, let me try this tasting thing again. Let's get back to basics:

- It's good.

- I don't want to pour it out the window.

- I don't make weird involuntary sounds when I take a sip.

- It actually kind of smells like juice.

- SUCCESS.

Verdict: Yeah this is actually really good, if you want to be fancy and have a whole $15 to spend. A wise investment.

[ED. NOTE: Obviously I knew the wine wouldn't taste like cupcakes. I just like being difficult.]

Fielding Estate Winery - White Conception (Blend)

Origin: Ontario

Price: $18.95

Vintage: 2009

Date drunk: February 2, 2012

d.: d.'s going all bougie.

g.: This smells exactly like nothing. Entirely contary to the commentary in our last post.

AND IT TASTES LIKE HEAVEN. I taste nuts and butter. There's a tiny hint of flowers but it mostly tastes like lightly buttered bread. It's so delicate. I want to serve this on a little porcelain tea tray covered in tiny birds.

d.: This is what happens when you pretend you can afford expensive wines.

g.: We don't really have much else to say. It's hard to talk about wines when they don't taste like sharks.

d.: I think this goes with your buttery taste, but it's so rich it's almost creamy. Whoever would have thought a white wine would be creamy? Why not just drink butter?

g.: Could we... mix... wine and butter? Or... buttermilk? What would happen... chemistry-wise?

d.: I feel like vomit.

g.: I feel like experiments.

[Ed. note: This did not happen. We are not dead. Or scientists. Everything is fine. But if anyone wants to try that out, feel free to report back.]

Palatine Hills Estate - 1812 Chardonnay

Origin: Ontario

Price: $12.20

Vintage: 2008

Date drunk: February 2, 2012

d.: It smells jaunty.

g.: Jaunty like a stroll in a garbage dump.

d.: Maybe, but you still have a cane and a monocle.

g.: Okay, so it tastes fine. I think evidence on this blog will show that I apparently hate the smell of every wine ever.

d.: If I had to go with a shape for this taste, I think I'd go with oval. Because it's not super round, but it's not flat.

g.: I have no idea what this tastes like. Fruit? Lemons? Flowers from the battlefield at York? Let's hope so. It's good. A little sweet, kind of sour, but dry. Like the bones of the dead, etc. I'm really reaching for the war theme here. I want to like this wine because today I touched a musket that was used in the war of 1812. I deserve to like this wine.

d.: It's got a bite like a sabre.

g.: It's warm like the radiant heat from the explosion of a munitions depot. There. It's seriously warm though. We're impatient.

d.: It goes down smooth like powder down the barrel of a musket.

g.: Damn, guy.