Today we are going to be reviewing a wine from the beautiful Wilson Creek Winery. Wilson Creek is located in Temecula California and is about 45 minutes North of San Diego. I received this wine in my regular shipment one month while I belonged to their wine club. Today's review wine is the 2013 Wilson Creek GSM "Family Reserve". This particular wine is a blend of three different grape varietals. These varietals are 45% Grenache, 25% Syrah and 30% Mouvedre. If you are like most people, myself included, I myself am not that familiar with the varietal named Mouvedre (also known as Monastrell) so let's do a little education concerning that particular varietal. Mouvedre is usually a full bodied wine whose origins are from Spain (where it is popularly known as Alicante) and where there are
approximately 150,000 Acres grown. The varietal is most popularly used in the making of Port style fortified wines. The Mouvedre varietal is also known to produce fairly tannic wines that are normally higher than average in their alcohol percentage. Some of the other characteristics for this varietal are notes of Black Pepper, smoke, gravel & meat. Body and color comparisons would best be described as close to the Syrah varietal. This particular wine is coming in at 14.3% Alcohol so the Mouvedre has certainly lived up to that standard of a higher Alcohol varietal. Proper food pairing for this varietal would be very rich types of meat such as Barbecue Lamb, Rabbit, Pork Sausage or Beef Ribs. So now that we have all learned a little bit about this wine and it's makeup, the big question is what did I think of the wine? Well let's continue reading and see what is going on with this wine.
On the pour I have to tell you straight out that this wine started off unimpressive in appearance to say the least. The wine is extremely uncharacteristically light in it's appearance and was certainly on the watery side especially around the edges of the glass where it appeared almost clear in color. As your eye looks beyond the unimpressive edge of the glass the wine does seem to darken up a slight bit as you move to the center of the glass but nothing that I would note as visually impressive or anywhere near in keeping with it's varietal standards described above. With hopes of the wine improving let's move onto my impressions on the nose.
On the nose the wine seems to stand out and shine with aromatic notes of rich Red berry fruit, Caramel / Cocoa, Raspberry and smoke. I have to say here that the nose of the wine is certainly really inviting and rather impressive with the fruit note as well as the others. I am now anticipating the next step in this review which of course is the actual tasting.
On the Palette is where the wine develops its real issues. The wine exhibits a definitely moderately harsh and acidic cherry notes that immediately envelope the Palette. This acidic cherry note certainly does take some getting use to and never really does accomplished that getting use to task in my opinion. I have to say here that upon initially tasting the wine, my Palette was really offended, or seriously put off by that acidic cherry combination. Closely on the heels of this Acidic cherry there is a sort of Caramel or Cocoa note that comes across mixed rather nicely with notes of Oak as well. Red Current is most definitely present as well in the wine and comes across on the Palette as a sort of Tannic note. The Oak note itself is both smoky and earthy and believe it or not sort of in a way elevates or makes up somewhat for the initial acidic cherry issue that I mentioned. These notes have a way of working fairly well around this Acidic Cherry issue and almost (I said almost) manages to pull off making up for the acidic note rather nicely. There is however a fair amount of the previously mentioned acidity remaining on the tongue that does unfortunately still stand out and continues throughout the tasting. I also discovered that if you can give this wine a while to open up (at least an hour) and allow yourself to put the acidic cherry note to the back of your mind as best as you can, the other notes do a pretty decent job in presenting themselves and exposing that there is more to the wine than you might have initially thought. I definitely liked the Cocoa that is on the nose however while it does indeed appear on the Palette it is unfortunately only noticeable for a short time and than fades rather quickly but nonetheless is enjoyable while it lasts. I have come across this issue previously where a particular not will impress only to fade really fast. Getting back to the acidic cherry note I have to let you know that the wine is going to lose four (4) points (yeah it bothered me that much) for this moderately offensive and persistent note. What will the final review be with the four (4) points removed? You will have to wait until the end of the review guys for that answer. Moving quickly now here I feel that I would be remiss if I didn't make specific mention of the pepper from the Syrah. A moderate Black Pepper spice clearly shines through and also helps make up partially for the acidic cherry. Do notice that once again notice there is something attempting to act as a cover for the acidic cherry.
Well, you made it, it's now time now to wrap all this rather short review up and tell you my final opinion on this wine.This is a wine that I certainly have to say I have mixed feeling about. On one hand there is the wonderful bouquet to the wine and that can't be taken away, on the other hand there is that ever present and certainly at the very least, moderately offensive note of acidic cherry that really threw both the wine and Palette off big time. While there was definitely a large part of the wine that I did indeed like, there also was what I think ended up being a large issue that I really didn't like. That darn acidic cherry was of major concern to me. In my book this note was enough to drop this wine 4 (four) points off The Desert Wine Guy rating scale. The loss of these 4 (four) points was also unfortunately enough to drop this wine out off the ninety point scale. With that being said, I feel this wine earned a rating of 86 (83–86 Good suitable for everyday consumption, often good value) points on The Desert Wine Guy rating scale.
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approximately 150,000 Acres grown. The varietal is most popularly used in the making of Port style fortified wines. The Mouvedre varietal is also known to produce fairly tannic wines that are normally higher than average in their alcohol percentage. Some of the other characteristics for this varietal are notes of Black Pepper, smoke, gravel & meat. Body and color comparisons would best be described as close to the Syrah varietal. This particular wine is coming in at 14.3% Alcohol so the Mouvedre has certainly lived up to that standard of a higher Alcohol varietal. Proper food pairing for this varietal would be very rich types of meat such as Barbecue Lamb, Rabbit, Pork Sausage or Beef Ribs. So now that we have all learned a little bit about this wine and it's makeup, the big question is what did I think of the wine? Well let's continue reading and see what is going on with this wine.
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