Tag Archive for 'alcohol'

This week for our Cabernet Sauvignon wine tasting, we had our largest group of people and our biggest selection of wine. Regions represented were California, Chile, France, Italy, South Africa, and Australia. We had a difficult time finding any wines outside the $8-$13 range.

For the evening, our hobo bag theme was lackluster blockbusters, or blockblunders, or just plain crappy box office hits: Titanic, Wild Wild West, Speed 2, Men in Black, Armageddon, The Phantom Menace, Waterworld, and Pearl Harbor.

We discovered that in general, Cabernet was a lighter, fruitier red wine, and ranged from extremely dry to nearly dessert wine sweet. In several wines, the alcohol taste came through rather obnoxiously.

Last place went to a $14 bottle of Avalon from Sonoma, California, 2004. In a near-tie for last place was a $9 bottle of Bolla from Italy, 2006. A few weeks ago, Bolla won first place for Chianti.

A $13 1-liter box of French Rabbit from France got second place. It was very sweet and light, but easy to drink and approachable. It had flavors of honey and strawberry.

When we pulled the first place winner out of the brown paper bag, the room was full of gasps and groans as we learned that it was Yellow Tail, Australia, 2007, $6.50. Much to our dismay, its rich christmas-like flavors of vanilla, licorice and cloves earned it the highest score we have given to any of the twenty-seven bottles we have tasted so far.

For dinner I made Emeril’s recipe for ratatouille as well as sage roasted potatoes. David made a dessert with poached meringue floated on a martini glass of custard and garnished with a wafer of caramel.

If we learned anything that night, it’s that consuming food at unnatural speeds and set to music is hysterical.

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So I’m a little late with posting our review of red Zinfandel. About two weeks late.

Zinfandel is grown world-wide, but the vast majority of Zinfandel available in the US is from California. As a matter of fact, we were unable to find anything outside of California to taste.  Also difficult to find was any bottle over $20. It pairs well with barbecue and spicy food, so I made Emeril’s vegetarian chili.

We had five bottles, and not one scored well. The more we drank, the more we realized that Zinfandel did not sit well with us. They reminded us of the Argentinean wine from the previous week. The tastes were all tar, petroleum, and dirty socks.

At least the chili was a hit.