Today I am going to be doing a short review of the 2014 Courtney Benham (
Martin Ray Vineyards & Winery) Sauvignon Blanc from the California Central Coast. From the very beginning of this review I will lay out my feelings very simply. I hoped for a lot more. I spent $15 for this wine and I was not impressed at all. From the beginning I will also tell you that this is a very light White. There we are, review done now back to your regular scheduled program. Alright, alright, let me get serious now. Upon first tasting this wine I noticed that there was indeed a pretty nice note of Tart Green Apple that clearly stood out on my Palette. Unfortunately this nice note of Green Apple was followed by an also noticeable note of Alcohol that I did NOT care for (who would).
While there are some fair notes to this wine, none of them except the Green Apple truly make you want to step up and take notice of them. To be fair, some do come close but overall they fall just short. There is a note of lemongrass very prominently and that displays itself decently but the wine is overall sort of acidic along with those notes and when blended with the Lemongrass AND the Alcohol note is also slightly on the harsh side. Another negative is that the wine finishes with a watery note on the end. Although the other notes mentioned come along with it, the watery note is what is remembered for whatever reason. I think, as anyone would that watery notes on wine are always thought of as bad because.....well because they are. Any lover of wine is expecting a lot more than watery finish. Look, $15 isn't exactly cheap for a wine so there really is no reason that a consumer should have to deal with such a lame finish. There is some good parts to the wine such as Honeysuckle and Honey notes and yes, they are tasted BUT....they are just not enough for this wine to pull through for me. The acidity I mentioned earlier sort of tarnishes the other notes as well. You know, I am aware that you might reading this review and thinking to yourself that the wine sounds pretty nice as far as notes despite the Alcohol note and a few other drawbacks and being on the outside I might think the same thing I mean wine is subjective after all. Let me tell you guys, please don't think that way. The acidity along with the Alcohol note and the acidity really do this wine in. Add to that the watery note which is a put off and the over done Lemongrass the wine is lacking in some areas and overpowering in others. The other notes such as Green Apple, Honeysuckle & Honey are indeed nice but nowhere enough to pull the wine past it's negatives in my book. The wine also literally leaves a bad taste in my mouth because of the previously mentioned Lemongrass that lingers. The wine could have been nice but some of the notes just hit me wrong and they put me off.
Let me see if I can break this down in closing it a little better. Forget the overly acidic note. Forget the Alcohol note. Forget the watery finish. Forget the Lemongrass that blends with the previously mentioned notes I just mentioned, what are you left with? Honeysuckle, Honey, Tart Green Apple. Now if you simple had these notes the wine would be nice but unfortunately I just can't forget about those notes, they exist and are not all subtly.
In finishing this review I will tell you that the wine try's to be liked but falls short of that goal, it doesn't try hard enough in my opinion. To astringent / acidic / overpowering. A very strange and mixed wine indeed. My initial taste of this wine I think did it in for me, that was really all I needed to know that this wine simply wasn't cutting it. While drinking some more I of course started breaking the wine down further and noticing that while my Palette was picking up more flavors there were good as well as bad. Legs (Alcohol) galore in my glass if that means anything to you but overall the wine was simply O.K. On The Desert Wine Guy rating scale I am putting this wine at an 82 which is "Acceptable Can be employed in casual, less-critical circumstances".
The Desert Wine Guy
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