I bought it for the label....

C'mon, look at this guy..... you'd want to bring him home with you too, right?

Okay, well if not the guy... unleash your inner 6-year old and buy a bottle of The Bastard!

I got this quite some time ago and wasn't really sure what to expect. This 2007 bottle of Il Bastardo Sangiovese Rosso di Toscana was really my first foray into Sangioveses.

A little history....the Sangiovese is a red Italian wine grape most commonly use in making Tuscan Chianti. The grapes themselves are said to be fruity like strawberries, but with a hint of spiciness and take on a distinct oakiness when aged in barrels.

The Il Bastardo winery is located in the Rufina area of Tuscany just outside Florence in the Sieve River Valley -- this is said to be the best area for Sangiovese grapes.

The Big Dubya opened the bottle and poured two healthy glasses -- I took my first sip and was very pleased. It was extremely mild -- fruity, sweet, but not sticky sweet. I didn't detect any strawberries -- but there was a hint of blackberry for sure. The flavors weren't terribly deep, but that was okay because they were comfortable -- complex in it's simpleness. The finish was pleasant and very smooth -- there was no bite at all. This is the kind of wine you could drink a lot of and not feel weighed down or heavy.

I found myself wishing I'd picked up more and at less than $10 a bottle -- I'll keep an eye out for this one.

Enjoy!

Vacation Whining

It’s been months since I’ve posted here on The Whinery. So I should probably slip back in, write a low-key post on this month’s assignment, and pretend that I’ve been here all along.

But I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m going to skip the assignment, break the “guidelines,” and whine about it while I’m at it.

Last month, Sue (the wife) and I went to Disney World with Clare (our seven year-old daughter). We’d originally waited a year for a reservation at the Beach Club Villas, had to change dates and lost that reservation last year, and waited another year to go back. The hotel was fantastic. Unfortunately, it rained five out of our seven days there. The rain was bad. Biblical bad. There was about two feet of rain in central Florida in a few days time.

So what did we do? Apart from staying out of the pool, we went on as usual. We went to the parks, enjoyed the shorter than normal lines, and had fun despite the weather. We also lingered a little longer than usual in some great restaurants (and even got a last minute reservation at one of Disney’s best) and enjoyed a few bottles of overpriced wine. Thinking ahead, Sue jotted down the names of each wine. Not thinking at all, I tossed out the envelope Sue’s notes were written on when we got home. Here’s what we remember.

Our first Disney wine, at bluezoo in the Dolphin, was a 2007 Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio. (I guess that is the assignment—although we drank it in May.) We both had fish, and it paired really well. It wasn’t too dry, and it wasn’t too fruity. (The restaurant overall was really fantastic too—even Clare liked it.)

Our second wine of the week was a Paolo Masi Chianti Reserva at the Yachtsman. We both liked it. We both had steak, and again it paired really well. That’s all we remember. Knowing us, that probably means that it wasn’t too heavy and it wasn’t too light. Chianti usually gets two thumbs up from us. (This is another great restaurant that we all liked too.)

Out third and last bottle of wine (we went with mixed drinks and beer some other nights) was a California Merlot at California Grill at the top of the Contemporary. This is the reservation that we snagged at the last minute, which is unusual since it’s the prime place to watch the Magic Kingdom fireworks (especially when it’s raining). The wine? We know we liked it, but we don’t really remember any specifics at all. This isn’t much of a wine review, is it?

Here’s what I’m interested in though. Have you ever ordered a bottle at a restaurant (we probably paid $50-60 for $20 bottles of wine) and then bought a bottle to try out again at home? Did it live up to expectations? If we try it with these three (well the two we remember the names of at least) we’ll let you know.

It’s Juuust Right…or Is It?

One of the reasons that Sue and I don’t post here too frequently is probably that we don’t really know what we’re talking about when it comes to wine. We know what we like when we taste it, but when it comes to using words like balance, body, bouquet, nose or finish, we’re little at a loss. Instead, our discussions of wine often go something like this:

“You like it?”

“It’s not bad, you?”

“Eh.”

We drink it anyway.

Sue and I drink reds more than whites and, usually, one of us likes a wine more than the other. Sue favors lighter Merlots and Pinot Noirs; I usually like heavier Cabernets or Zinfandels. Sometimes, of course, we both really like a wine. This seems to happen most often with Italian Chiantis or Spanish Riojas. When we find one we both like, we usually buy it again.

A few weeks ago, we tried a 2003 Chianti Classico from Castello di Gabbiano that Sue picked up for $12.00. According to Cellar 360, Castello di Gabbiano’s sales partner, the Chianti Classico has “delicate floral aromas of violets and soft scents of fruity blackberry [that] mark the nose. The dry, medium-bodied palate is filled with robust tannins and flavors of black pepper, sweet spices, and a touch of light, toasted oak. The finish is long and dry.” Like I said, I never could have come up with the description myself. I could agree with it though—except for the violets, I’m not so sure I tasted violets.

A couple weeks later, we picked up another bottle specifically for the purpose of reviewing it here. (Yeah, that’s the only reason we bought it.) Same wine, same price, same store even. This time though, we didn’t really like it. It tasted more acidic and a little vinegary. We were hoping we could recommend this one, but now we’re not so sure.

Has anyone else had a bad second experience with a wine they liked the first time?

Left me wanting more, but not in a good way

I've procrastinated long enough, it's time to get down to my first wine review. I wish I could say that is was worth the wait - for me, something tells me you all had better things to do than worry about when my first wine review was coming - but it wasn't.

Let's go to the beginning. A new wine store recently opened in the shops surrounding on our picturesque, very New England-ish town common. I had high hopes for my first wine from this shop, but I had my two year old daughter with me (they're only open until 6pm, closing well before my husband gets home from work) and I was a bit distracted. So I was only too happy to take the suggestion of the woman behind the counter. A 2004 Fattoria di Vetrice Chianti Rufina.

I was all Hey, I like Chianti! and for $11 I was pretty happy. So I brought the wine home. The wine is produced by the Grati family in the Rufina region of Tuscany, in the hills around Pontassieve. I was even more thrilled then because I've been to Pontassieve twice and was familiar with the area.

I started to do a bit of research on the web about this wine and there was... Nothing. Well, next to nothing (I couldn't even find a picture of the actual label, that one above is a different vintage). And that was a foreshadowing of what this wine was to be like. As soon as I took a sip and swallowed there was...

Nothing.

It is a Chianti Rufina, after all, and not a Reserva, and the very first taste was enough to bring me back to those warm days in the Tuscan sun. But like a good vacation it was over too fast. The fruit explodes quickly in your mouth but there's no finish. And the tannins were a bit too overpowering for the fruit. I don't mind that fuzzy tongue feeling you get from heavy tannins as long as the wine is worth it. This wasn't.

As my husband put it, "It is what it is. For eleven bucks it's not bad." And we weren't eating when we were drinking this wine (long day + cranky child = pass the alcohol NOW). Maybe a good port salut cheese would have helped this wine a bit, but we didn't have any (damn).

For my hard earned $11 dollars I'd like a bit more. This wine, in my opinion, would have been great - fantastic even - in a carafe as the local house red in a trattoria in Sienna. But those cobblestone streets have a way of making everything better, even a sub-par wine. It's not horrible, it's very drinkable, but I'll forget its name as soon as the last drop is gone.