The Desert WIne Guy - 2016 District 7 - Sauvignon Blanc

   Today we are going on a trip to District 7. Where is District 7 and what do they have to offer, that is a good question. District 7 is one of 17 grape crush districts located in the state of California with District 7 being in Monterey County and thus influenced weather wise by the Pacific Ocean. I was at my local Supermarket the other day and I came across a Shopping Cart of wine with a "discount" sticker on it and well, how could I pass it up? Honestly I have more then enough wine in the house that I can review especially with my recent trip to Napa but I figured, why not? Looking through the cart I saw a lot of wines that simply were not of interest to me. I came across one bottle of our review wine which is the 2016 District 7 - Sauvignon Blanc (https://district7wines.com/) and decided I would try it. The wine as you can see from the picture above was reduced to $8.99 and sells $16 retail as well as at the winery itself. The price alone gave a little more incentive to try it and so here we are. The wine comes in at 13.5% on the Alcohol scale and is (of course) sealed with a Screw cap. The grapes for the wine are listed as Estate Grown and of course due to the proximity of District 7 are grown in a cooler area due to the Pacific Ocean influence of wind and other weather factors. The wine is also 100% Sauvignon Blanc and sat in Stainless Steel all the time. One other item of interest here that I want to mention is that at Harvest the grapes were of varying Brix (sugar) levels (weird). I have never tasted a wine from Monterey County prior to this so it should be interesting indeed.

   Lets go ahead now and look at the label of this wine and see what I can tell you. Looking at the label here and above it would not normally be a wine that I would reach out for and take off of a shelf as it just doesn't strike me as being of interest visually. Looking at it here on my review table I kind of am perceiving it as portraying in my mind at least the thought of a Pool or Beach wine, inexpensive, semi-sweet and perhaps therefore even also......forgettable. The label did provide needed information and did explain where the wine got it's name from which was nice.
   Moving to the wines appearance in my glass now I will tell you that looked like water. I did not see any Straw or Golden tinges or Hues that would change that opinion no matter how I much I moved the glass around. The wine visually is unimpressive to say the least.
   On the nose now the wine presented a note of super light and fading (as is the entire Bouquet) Gooseberry with the slight promise of at least a small bit of Minerality. There is also an ever so slight note of Guava and Honeysuckle present but overall the Bouquet does nothing to glorify or showcase the wine nor does it leave me in anticipation of what I am about to taste. Once again I am finding the wine unimpressive.

   Now we are onto the Palate presentation of the wine. Guys, I hope the wine can liven up a good bit because so far it is totally lacking of anything that would bring me back to it in the future. Light Gooseberry and light Pear, both fading fast are presented on the opening of the wine. There is a watered down aspect to the wine as well. Go ahead and throw in a bit of light Lime and some super light straw,perhaps Minerality notes and for the most part you have this wine summed up. The website for District 7 says that the wine has "bracing Minerality" well if it does I would like to find it because it seems to have escaped my bottle. Honeysuckle makes an appearance here and I believe this is truly the dominate note yet it can't save this wine from the direction it is unfortunately headed in. I will tell you as well that there is a note of Passion Fruit that is exhibited here but......this note as with the others in the wine just seems to fade really quickly. There is a big spice note here on the Finish as well that is presenting a big note of herbaceousness on the Palate and not in a good way either. Discussing one more very prominent note here is one of Lemon which is really fighting for dominance and could be argued, actually wins out. This note is simply too sharp for my liking. The wine also seems to want to convince me that it is a structured white yet when you really taste it it lacks the qualities necessary for that to be a reality.

Overall there is something "off" about this wine almost like it is very unbalanced and it is really throwing my Palate off big time wine lovers. Bottom line Sauvignon Blanc lovers there is so much better expressions of this varietal out there such as the 2017 (or 2018) White Sauvignon Blanc (https://desertwineguy.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-desert-wine-guy-2017-whitehaven.html) even if they are a couple of dollars more. On The Desert Wine Guy rating scale I am giving this wine 85 points which means that the wine is very simply, not worth mentioning. A wine that plain & simply needs to be relegated to the dumpster.

                                                                                                                  The Desert Wine Guy

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