Yellow Tail - Rosé

Origin: Australia
Price: $10.95
Vintage: 2008
Date Drunk: June 12th, 2009

Yet another installment of d. Drinks a Red and I Drink a White(ish) Because Red Wine Makes Me Hurl.

Look, I don't even like red wine. I don't know why I keep buying this Rosé crap all the time. This one, in particular, is really red. Too red. I prefer my cheap white/red mixes to be all light and pink and airy and fruity. Christ, maybe I just like wine coolers. Is that so wrong?

A: YES

So, this'll probably be a short one:

First sip: *SHUDDER*

Second sip: Okay, okay. I taste some sort of fruit in there--maybe raspberries or strawberries.

Third sip: I guess I can taste the vanilla. Some kind of comforting dessert-y type flavour, anyway.

There's actually quite a bit going on in this wine for a $11 bottle of Yellow Tail. Despite it's weird bitter mouth-shrinking redness, it's kind of interesting. After a few more sips, it all comes together really nicely, and I have stopped being a hater. I'll drink this with only minor complaints--mostly having to do with always choosing crap I'm predisposed to hating.

(PLUS: 13.5% alcohol. GOOD JOB.)

Lamberti - Pinot Grigio blush

Origin: Italy
Price: $11.95
Vintage: 2008
Date drunk: May 30th, 2009

g.: It tastes exactly how it looks.*

d.: It's almost coppery.

* and this wine looks AMAZING. It's a light pinkish orange.

d.: It looks and tastes very autumnal.

g.: I've never had a rose Pinot Grigio before, and I have to say that this venture is a GREAT SUCCESS. The friendly and knowledgeable cashier at the LCBO was really into this, and said that he often "sits on the web with a bottle, and all of a sudden it's 3AM." That is a serious seal of approval.

d.: It's like drinking juice, it's so clear and smooth.

g.: It's super balanced; not too sweet, not too bitter or acidic. It's so pretty and refreshing and unassuming that I just want to give it a big hug and a warm meal and be its friend forever. I think I would also like a sweater in this colour. Could I dye a white one with wine? I would like to FIND OUT.

Pelee Island - Blanc de Blanc (Vidal/Seyval Blanc mix)

Origin: Ontario
Price: $8.95
Vintage: 2007
Date drunk: May 23rd, 2009

g.: So... it tastes like wine.

d.: It's a very light wine. There's no flavour at the start, and then a little BALOOP of flavour, and then clear. And when the Baloop happens, it's pretty tasty.

g.: I have previously said that this blog was going to be about telling you whether or not a wine is actually drinkable or not. Well, this wine is definitely drinkable. This is a safe bet. We've had two other Seyval Blanc before, both from the Maritimes, and they were smooth, delicious, and pretty much my ULTIMATE WINE. This Seyval Blanc is not quite as good, but it's still an awesome type of wine.

d.: It's a very clear, refreshing wine; there's no harsh after-taste. There's no cringe-inducing swallow-taste. It's a good wine. I'd take it home to meet my mother.

Loios - Alentejano

Origin: Portugal
Price: $9.95
Vintage: 2008
Date drunk: May 23rd, 2009

g.: Oh fucking shit.

d.: While it's not the greatest of wines, I don't know if my reaction is quite so forceful. It's really apple-y. The wine, that is; not my reaction.

g.: *another sip* ... no, I'm still going with "oh fucking shit."

d.: Say you have some sort of hybrid of an apple and gross meat. It smells sort of hammy, so we'll go with ham as the gross meat. Now imagine biting into that apple, not knowing it was hybridised with this gross ham-meat. That is what caused g's reaction (maybe).

g.: No, I think it's because it tastes like grapes and knives, together.

d.: It has a refreshing molar effect, though.

g.: What DOES THAT MEAN.

d.: It feels neat on the molars and wisdom teeth when I let it sit in the back of my mouth.

g.: I don't think there's any chance of me letting it sit in my mouth for long enough to corroborate your claim.

d.: That's what she said.

g.: I'm getting a shot glass.

d.: If you do, I will.

g.: Dear anyone reading this blog: if we don't post next week, I'm probably in the hospital. [UPDATE: I'M NOT IN THE HOSPITAL, DON'T CALL THE POLICE]

d.: Oh, though I can taste the grapes, I have yet to taste the knives.

g.: You're going to want to watch out for that. They'll cut you when you least expect it. Okay, I just took another sip, and it's actually not that awful.

d.: The quality of meatness in the flavour seems to diminish the closer to the bottom of the glass I get.

g.: We probably have at least a 2:1 wine to meat ratio on this blog right about now. The only thing we can come up with to describe wine is pork or ham, and we're fucking vegetarians.

d.: I actually liked this when I took the last sip from the glass. It has a strong (though not necessarily wine-like) flavour that is not altogether unappealing.

g.: NOTE: d. has finished his glass. I have had approximately three sips.

Pierre Sparr Extrēm - Riesling

Origin: France
Price: $14.95
Vintage: 2007
Date drunk: May 15th, 2009

d.: The smell is vomitising, yet the taste.... is magical. It's really smooth and mellow.

g.: I think it tastes like grass, but this is a good thing, absolutely. It's refreshing. Really delicious.

d.: It seems like a pretty acidic wine.

g.: I agree--the acidity gives it a weird sharpness at the beginning, but it becomes this glorious explosion of flavours in your mouth. The after-taste is pretty amazing. It lingers and it is actually welcome to do so.

d.: It's a wine taste that comes in, crashes on the tooth couch, and hangs out for awhile.

g.: I could really imagine drinking this on a porch on a bright sunny day.

d.: It's really readily drinkable; it's sippable, slurpable, and chuggable.

g.: I feel bad for rejecting this wine at the store every weekend because the label described it as "dry"--it's a bit dry, but the flavours balance it out.

Fazi Battaglia - Verdicchio

Origin: Italy
Price: $10.95
Vintage: 2007
Date drunk: May 15th, 2009

g.: I taste turpentine. It's not bad, though. Does this mean I can now successfully drink turpentine? Please say yes.

d.: Coming out of this beer imposed retirement, I'm having difficulties. It has a watery commencement. And one damn BLANG of a terminus. It's more bitter than sour, I find, the taste-finish that is.

g.: We bought this for the bottle and the mini-scroll that came with it, honestly. We are doing the world (i.e. our home decor) a service by draining this bottle and using it in an appropriate manner. This might mean sticking a dead flower in it.

d.: The scroll has a map on it. That's worth at least $10 of the admission price. It's a really nice map. It has embossing, and gold leaf.

g.: I agree.

d.: It's not a very good wine, let's be honest.

g.: I really don't even know. It might be great and my plebe taste-buds aren't sophisticated enough to know it. I LIVE A SHELTERED LIFE, tucked away from wines that have many syllables and turpentine after-tastes.

d.: Turpentine is definitely a sign of high class wine.

g.: You should write a book and name it that.

d.: I find that the harshness of it diminishes. It's not a bad wine; it's just not great.

Fat Bastard - Chardonnay

Origin: France
Price: $14.95
Date drunk: April 25th, 2009

g.: It's really crisp and lemony.

d.: It's very smooth and clear. It has a nice smoky whisper, at the swallow-moment.

g.: So like bacon. Bacon wine. Or hickory-stick wine. Or wine on fire. Can we try wine on fire?* I can't think of much to say about this, because I started drinking it early by accident, and I ruined my first-sip analysis. Goddamn.

* Wine on fire with a shot of whiskey dropped in it.

d.: It's a good chardonnay. It starts clear, moves through a square of sour, and finishes clear. It's like a circle. A circle of clarity.

g.: I don't know anything about wine shapes. I need to upgrade to Wine Geometry 101. I feel like this might taste like a rhombus, though. Or a decahedron. Probably a decahedron. Or bacon.**

** d. does not want to give the wrong impression. He stresses that the wine is actually good. It is. It's true.

(g.: I almost wish that I could scan the hard copy of this entry from our wine journal. It looks completely bananas.)

Cave Spring - Rosé

Origin: Ontario
Price: $12.95
Date drunk: April 25th, 2009

g.: It doesn't really taste like... anything.

d.: It has that "make your teeth feel weird" thing going on, though. There's a bitterness at the centre of the taste; it's not at the beginning, and then it appears and it's gone before you finish.

g.: I don't even know what to say about it. It tastes like a Rosé, but other from that... I don't know. It's a bit too much on the red-tasting side for me, though. I'd probably prefer if it were sweeter and fruitier. Maybe I'm confusing Rosé with White Zinfandel.
Dear Readers,
I don't actually know anything about wine. The internet will tell me later.
Love,
Used to Drink Great White

d.: It seems almost like there is a cherry flavour at the end of the taste. And I don't like cherries.

Jackson Triggs - Gewürztraminer

Origin: Ontario
Price: We don't remember. Probably $9.95. At most, $12.
Date drunk: April 18th, 2009

d.: That's alt 129, by the way [re: umlaut]. The smell is soapy, like nice, fancy, fruit soap.

g.: This is a really, really strange tasting wine. It's spicy. The woman at "Wine Rack" said it had a really good balance between sweet and acidic, and I think she was right. She also said a lot of other, complicated things I did not understand, but she was probably right about those too.

d.: This is like, let's say, if a Macintosh apple--not a computer--got all hot and steamy with a lemon, and produced, after the appropriate period of gestation, a mutant baby fruit.

g.: BOW CHICKA BOW WOW
I think this would taste really good with a shot of whiskey dropped into it. I would probably drop dead 30 seconds later, but I bet it would be worth it. Maybe Fireball. Someday, friends. Someday.

d.: I really like the after taste. Actually, I like the whole thing. I like it.

g.: I don't think it's something I'd like to have very often, but it's a satisfying change. I'd probably get this particular one again.

With WHISKEY.

Ciao - Organic Chardonnay

Origin: Italy
Price: $12.85 (1L)
Date drunk: April 9th, 2008

I look at this every single time I'm at the store, because although you can't tell from this photo, the carton is all holographic and shimmery. I also happen to really enjoy purple and green as a combo. Dear Wine Marketing Dudes: you win.

Down to business:

First sip: Ding ding! YES! I wanted to like this so bad, and I do. It's smooth and delicious. It's even way too warm because I'm impatient, and it still gives me virtually no pause . This doesn't taste like a chardonnay. I don't even know what it does taste like. Magic juice, I guess.

More sips: I'm in wine-love. Let's go out somewhere fun, Ciao, and get to know each other a little better. Maybe we'll go hang out on the rocks by the waterfront and talk about how you're a beautiful pale yellow, and that you look really great tonight in those sparkly clothes, and we'll probably work so well together--even though you smell kind of weird. It's okay, that kind of thing doesn't matter to dudes like us. Afterward we can go stumble around downtown, and sit on a roof and yell at cars, because we're better than cars, man.

I gotta go.

Green Rabbit - Organic Merlot

Origin: France
Price: $13.90
Date drunk: April 9th, 2009

The smell!; it starts out bitter, acrid but, when the inhalation is finished and the scent swirls in the nose, the smell richens; the smell is that of, appropriately enough, ripened grapes—like those ones I used to mow around at Vesey's. I'd pull entire bunches off the vine, bite into them, suck out the juice and spit the seeds to the ground as I circled and circled on the Cub Cadet mower that had smoother steering than my car (smoother steering, actually, than anything else I'd ever driven). Those small, thick-skinned grapes were always a welcome treat toward the latter half of the mowing season. I haven't started drinking this yet; I'm still just enjoying the smell, swirling the glass under my nose over and over. I'm revelling in the smell, being all nostalgic for those grapes that grew, intertwined, with the kiwi trees in the arbour beside Arthur's Garden. The smell is so thick; cloyingly sweet. But now: DRINK TIME!

It's bitter—in the way that tobacco, cocoa are bitter. And there are hints of these in the finish of the wine (especially the cocoa). The start is very thin and somewhat harsh, but it levels off and rounds out nicely, though there is no sweetness here, which I tend to find less enjoyable than sweeter wines (or sweeter anything, really; it could be said that I have a sweet tooth [perhaps even several sweet teeth]). It's a smooth drink, though, in spite of its bitterness. And surprisingly refreshing. It's a very a clear tasting wine. There is simply the wine flavour; it hides behind nothing.

I'd wanted to try a wine made from organically grown grapes for a while now (one of my [many] pipe dreams is to eventually make wine from my own organically grown grapes. It's something I've thought about a lot [though not in any practical sense {pipe dream, remember?}] and it combines two things I enjoy [wine and growing things]. It would be great to bring something like that from, literally, the ground up. For myself, really.) and I'm glad I tried this one. It's fresh, clear, smooth and wonderfully bitter.

Voga Italia - Pinot Grigio

Origin: Italy
Price: $13.95
Date drunk: April 3rd, 2009

We bought this wine because:

You know those tiny tubes of perfume samplers? Yeah. That's this. Except in Giant Land. And full of drinkable alcohol.

g.: Now THAT'S better (re: tonight's other wine). This Pinot Grigio has a flavour. It tastes like apples and flowers. I guess this is what people mean when they say a "complex wine"--it's pretty multi-faceted, compared to the other one. The tiny extra bit of sweetness definitely helps. Yup, I think I like this.

d.: Yeah, this is a good wine. It has a nice, fully-fruited flavour. It is a complex wine; it's a good mix of flavours.

g.: I think the difference is, this actually tastes like something besides alcohol, whereas the cheaper--not necessarily monetarily--wines just taste like stale beer or something.

We're learning!

Giovello - Pinot Grigio

Origin: Italy
Price: $13.05
Date drunk: April 3rd, 2009

d.: There's butter in the smell. The taste, it is bland.

g.: Not much sweetness to it. Kind of bitter.

d.: It's a heartburn wine.

g.: There's a little something there--something slightly flavourful and maybe fruity, but it's mainly tingly and acidic. It's not bad, but a little bit flat for me. I like Pinot Grigios a bit less bitter.

d.: It's a warm flavour. It's very simple--not a complex wine.

g.: I can imagine that some people might choose this over something sweeter, but it's not really for me. Wins points for having an awesome indigo blue bottle. Loses points for being $13 and not that good.

d.: I like dragonflies.

Folonari - Pinot Grigio

Origin: Italy
Price: $14.75
Date drunk: March 27th, 2009

d.: It smells like gross meat.

g.: It smells like the fridge. Not that we have gross meat in the fridge, but it kind of smells like fridges do when you live in a house with five people and at least two of them forget about their shitty East Side Mario's leftovers for two weeks.

d.: It doesn't taste like gross fridge meat. It doesn't taste like a Pinot Grigio.

g.: It has the mild flatness of a Pinot Grigio, but it's missing all the interesting floral and fruity elements.

d.: It's not a good wine, it's just a palatable thing.

g.: Barely.

d.: If you don't breathe in through your nose while drinking, it's fine.

La Vieille Ferme - Cotes du Luberon

Origin: France
Price: $11.95
Date drunk: March 27th, 2009

d.: It smells like the ice wine tasted.

g.: Hey, this is good! It doesn't leave any taste in my mouth at all, but when I'm actually sipping it, it tastes interesting and lightly sweet/sour.

d.: When you let it sit in your mouth, there's a lingering full-mouth sourness.

g.: This is really refreshing. I'd probably like this with food. I'd probably like anything with food, though.

d.: The edges of the taste are squared off. It's not a round taste; it's a rectangular prism.

g.: Fancy pants.