The Desert Wine Guy - 2019 Cloud Break - Chardonnay

 

2019 Cloud Break - Chardonnay

    What would we do without the "big box" stores? Yes, I do get that they are generally less expensive than the so called "mom & pop" stores, sometimes even much less expensive. I also understand that their selection is better on most items, way better. I only ask this question because yesterday I happened to go to one of those big box wine/liquor retailer type stores in Gainesville, Florida which is about an hour away and also, where I purchased today's wine that is up for review. While the prices were pretty good, I did notice in general that they have gone up.....quite a bit (inflation anyone). One potential problem that always seems to crop up with these types of businesses in general and I think with good reason is how effective they are in eliminating the competition, the mom & pop stores? Once the competition is gone there is a vacuum left which in turn leads to a monopoly and prices will then really have the potential to shoot up since you no longer have a choice (competition) as to where to shop. I guess these stores are here to stay but does that mean we avoid the smaller stores all together. In my opinion, I don't believe we should. As a perfect example, there is a small wine shop not far from me and they have a wine from the Napa Valley winery, Pine Ridge that I was after but they were $3 higher than the big box store I go to yet I ended up buying the wine at the smaller shop anyway. As I finish up this intro paragraph I will leave you with my original question to answer for yourself. What would we do without the big box stores?

Chardonnay Waiting To Be Enjoyed

   Alright guys, let's dig into this wine now. As I already said, I purchased this wine from a big box wine/liquor retailer. As soon as my Daughters and I walked into the store we saw a few cases of the wine on an endcap and one of my daughters said "Daddy, you should try that wine". Well folks, what else could I do but buy the wine? I paid $8.99 for this wine and it is cork sealed but not by a real cork, it is a composite of some kind. Oh well, at least it's not a screw-cap right:) One last bit of information here, the alcohol percentage of this wine comes in at 12.5%.
   Let's talk label now. I like the label guys, it is bright and seems to celebrate the varietal visually very nicely. There is nothing distracting and even though the hair on the back of my neck raises when I see the words "barrel fermented" on it, I am willing to try and put that aside. I will tell you however that as someone who is not a huge lover of MLF (Malolactic Fermentation) this does scare me more then just a bit as in my experience this normally means an over abundance of both oak and butteriness.

Chardonnay Flavor Profile

   It is nose time now folks, time to see what the wine smells like. First up here as I start off is a note of oak as well as a buttery note and I immediately appear to have my concerns (MLF) reinforced. As far as any fruit notes being present here on the nose goes, I am getting massive tropical Green Apple as well as some pineapple. I don't know how this will translate over to the palate but I am kind of concerned that all of it will translate over as the bouquet is uncharacteristically very tropical & fruity for a Chardonnay. Hopefully the palate presentation of this wine will express itself in more of a refined way because if it comes across on the palate as it does on the nose, I might be ending this review very quickly.
   As far as the palate presentation of this wine goes.....yeah, it is severely lacking in almost every area other than sugary tasting fruit and mass amounts of butteriness and oak. I'll tell you right now in the beginning of this section that this is indeed going to be a short review as the wine is not worth me spending much time on as my fears of a buttery and oakey white wine have turned into reality. The wine is indeed very tropical and has enormous fruit to it but that fruit is way too in your face in the aspect of the wine coming across as being extremely sweet. Two other notes that really help in destroying this wine are oak and butteriness. The label was not lying when it said "barrel fermented". As if the wine needed another killer, there is a sweet, brightly tropically, and in your face Green Apple here that jumps right out at you and does nothing but cause you to sit back and go "whew" only not in a good way. The pineapple that the wine exhibits is mostly subdued and simply immersed in that massive sweetness as well. Guys, I am sorry, try as I might I can't go on with tasting this wine, there is simply no point in it. If I want to drink an overly sweet drink I can open a Monster or some other junky type energy drink. Let's move now to the conclusion paragraph and put this review (and my palate) out of it's misery.

Truer Words Were Never Said

   Alright so when they said "barrel fermented" they weren't kidding. If you believe that a quality or even semi quality Chardonnay is supposed to taste like eating a ripe fruit basket, then you are in luck as this is the wine for you. If however, you know what a quality Chardonnay is supposed to taste like, I suggest that you keep walking, wait, no.....running right past the end cap in the store and head on over to the 2018 Stags Leap, Napa Valley - Chardonnay which I rated at 96 points and cost me $29.99. This 2018 Stags Leap is the best Chardonnay that I have ever had the pleasure of reviewing. As for our review wine, this wine is very rich (think sweet) and very overpowering in the way of over the top tropical fruit, it is also without (almost) any redeeming qualities to note. In this wine reviewers opinion, this is wine is a huge flop folks. If you are a new wine drinker and still exploring your palate please don't taste this wine and assume that you now know what a Chardonnay really tastes like. This is an extremely palate offensive wine but does have one saving grace to it which is that it would be great for a pool wine but nothing more. If you have friends at the party who are into wine I highly suggest that you do not try to pass this off as a quality Chardonnay because you will be laughed at. I would suggest you tell your guests that the wine in their glass is some kind of white wine blend instead. On The Desert Wine Guy rating scale I am giving this wine a sink/drain cleaning 85 points. One other thing, this wine is way overpriced and if you insist on drinking it here is a tip to save you a lot of money. I have tasted the same junk for $2.99 from Wallyworld under the label Oak leaf.

                                                                                                                                     The Desert Wine Guy

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2019 Matt Parish - Pilot Hill Gang, Red Blend

 

The 2019 Matt Parish - Pilot Hill Gang, Red Blend

  Normally when I start off a review, I will talk about a particular topic that eventually will transition into the wine I am reviewing that day. Today however, I am going to get right down to business as I have a lot to talk about. Ready? Here we go. The best word to describe how I feel concerning today's wine review is, "excited". The winemaker of today's wine being reviewed is actually one which I discovered while I was reviewing (https://desertwineguy.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-desert-wine-guy-my-review-of-naked.html) the on-line wine company, Naked Wines (https://us.nakedwines.com//). While I was reviewing the company I was of course also reviewing (and enjoying) the wines they sent me for free in order to evaluate. As a part of these wines, I reviewed the 2018 Matt Parish - Tri-County, Cabernet Sauvignon (review not posted as of yet) which I gave 96 AWESOME points to.

Rutherford dust

There is no other way to say it, I absolutely fell in love with that wine, unfortunately as I went to order three more bottles I discovered it was sold out. The other day I actually joined the club and purchased (yes, my own money:) a case of wine from Naked Wines and I made it a point to seek out more of Matt's wines and the wine I got is the subject of today's review.
   Prior to actually getting into the wine, I want to do a couple of things though and the first thing is to remind you guys that I have no skin in the wine game, I am not beholding to anyone in the wine industry/business nor any other industry/business for that matter. I do this Desert Wine Guy stuff to educate people, because I want to help people find their next wine and because I really enjoy it. I don't care if anyone sends me stuff for free to review and while I do appreciate it, I have and will continue to call em as I see em. Having said this I would like to now talk about the second thing I want to address and that is to give a brief synopsis of the wine-making career of the winemaker for today's review wine, Mr. Matt Parish as I believe his background in the wine industry is rather impressive.
   Matt "graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Plant and Microbial Sciences from Canterbury University and a Masters Degree in Applied Sciences (Viticulture and Oenology) with Honors from Lincoln University (https://azur-associates.com/about). Aside from creating wine in America, Matt has created wines in New Zealand, Australia & France as well. Matt also worked for the highly respected Wine Network Consulting located in Melbourne, Australia. "With an enviable list of clients, including boutique producers through to large multinationals, everyday was a blast. As part of a high-profile team, he provided viticulture, wine-making, and wine business advice, established vineyards, designed wineries and introduced new wine production technologies"(https://vinture.arra.biz/index.php?page=about).

In 2003 Matt moved to America "where he spent the next 10 years in Group, Director and Chief Winemaker roles at two of the world's largest publicly listed wine companies. Constellation Wines US and Treasury Wine Estates Americas"(https://vinture.arra.biz/index.php?page=about). If you have never heard of Constellation Wines, here (https://www.cbrands.com/) is their link, I promise, you have heard of them. If you have never heard of Treasury Wine Estates Americas, here (https://www.tweglobal.com/) is their link, again, I promise, you have heard of them as well. If this wasn't enough, Matt also worked for wineries such as Beringer (Treasury Wine Estates), Stags’ Leap (Treasury Wine Estates) and Etude (Treasury Wine Estates). I could go on and on here but the bottom line is that Matt Parish is very well respected in his field and his qualifications exceed what I expected to see when I first checked out Naked Wines. If you still want more information on Matt, here (https://vinture.arra.biz/index.php?page=about) is the link that I got some of this information from. Currently not only is Matt a winemaker for Naked Wines but he is also the Managing Director, Wine-Making and Production for Azur Associates (https://azur-associates.com/) which is a marketing company for wine related businesses. If you ask me, Matt is very well qualified to be creating wines.
    Now for the wine. Today I will be reviewing the 2019 Matt Parish - Pilot Hill Gang, Red Blend . The wine as an "Angel" (member) cost me $14.99 however if I weren't a member, it would have cost me $23.99. The grapes for this wine come from the El Dorado County in the Sierra Nevada foothills. The alcohol percentage of this wine is 14.5% and the bottle was cork sealed. Folks, Have you ever e-mailed a winemaker? I can tell you from my own experience that about 99% of the time, you will never get a response.

I bring this up because in the middle of reviewing this wine I had cause to message Matt on Social Media concerning some specifics of this wine and to my surprise, he actually answered me back informing me that the wine is a small blend of 80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Petit Verdot & 10% Merlot. Matt also informed me that the wine was matured in Stainless Steel but did have some influence in "high-end, fire seasoned French Oak toasted" as well. If that isn't Customer Service, I don't know what is.
   Now it is label time. Keep in mind folks that this is a red wine and in my opinion a red wine wine needs to have a red wine label. With that being said, I thought that half of the label was great while the bottom half being in white, kind of threw me off and I really didn't care for it. To me the bottom half was a distraction and kind of came out of nowhere compared to the top section of the label. As a whole I guess this label worked fairly decently overall.
   Now it is time to look into this wines bouquet. As I bring the glass to my nose I get some nice and moderately juicy black cherry along with some expressive cassis. As the wine opens up a bit I get just a bit of oak but certainly nothing that can even come close to being overpowering here on the nose nor did it give off the impression that it would be overpowering on the palate. Following these particular notes up is a bit of a coffee note and as a whole and I have to tell you that the bouquet is enticing which is great as the wines nose is supposed to excite the taster and have them looking forward to tasting the wine which is something the nose of this wine certainly does for me.

Winemaker - Matt parish

   Speaking of tasting the wine, it is now time to see what this wine tastes like. Well, first up here is a semi bright yet at the same time, darkish note of black cherry. This black cherry is immediately swarmed but not dominated, by some amazing acidity. Yes folks, there certainly is wonderful and amazing acidity that also carries this wine throughout the entire palate presentation. What comes up next and what was really a bit of a surprise to me while also bringing this wine to life is a dustiness, a "Rutherford Dust" type note which is just superb and effective in a big way. Guys, while the entire palate is truly explosive it thankfully is not astringent nor did I find it in any way offensive. On top of these notes is a definite palate feel of luxuriousness and a sort of underlying yet effective silkiness or plushness which a blackberry note can help take credit for. There is also some fruit forwardness here in the wine which normally would be considered in my book to be a red wine killer and therefore I could certainly normally do without. Amazingly however, here in this wine while that fruit forwardness is not exactly shy, to my surprise it seems to work very well with everything else the wine puts out.
   Alright, so the above paragraph is where I left off yesterday as I certainly was able to discover some really nice notes right away but I wanted to give this wine a day to open up in order to see how it would develop. The only air allowed to enter the bottle was when I removed the stopper the day prior in order to pour a couple of glasses. As I come back to the wine today, I noticed that blackberry note had really developed even more and was displaying itself even better then yesterday. This note added to the complexity of the wine and had it elevate itself on my palate as well. As for any tannin's, they are present and could easily be confused for some other notes so you should pay attention. These tannin's are actually rather on the brambly side yet are certainly pleasant and above all, effective at giving the Tongue a super light coating and thereby elevating the entire wine profile as well. For those of you who steer clear from tannins, I don't think you will have to worry here. This wine most certainly gives off an upper-crust type impression and comes across as being an exclusive, expensive, bold & in many ways, a big red. There is also that impressive sense of a blackberry plushness I mentioned earlier that is a bit more than an underlying note as it is a nicely developed and well placed note as by the way, are all the wines other notes.

As I move closer to actually finishing the entire bottle (I know huh), the wine has become even more alive and even more robust in it's presentation. There is some nice Black Pepper that really pushes through and effectively assists in steering the palate. As a side note, I want to tell you that I happen to love Black Pepper and tannin's in my red wines by the way. A very slight palate note of leather is also part of that steering. Fruit, the wine is good friends with the black fruits I previously mentioned and my palate has become friends with them as well. While the original notes from day 1 fully remain, the addition of day number 2's notes really does wonders for this wine in as far as complexity and ability to excel is concerned. Guys, I do believe that I have said enough about this wine and so I will end this section of the review and see you in the final paragraph.    
   Alright everyone, let's wrap this up now. As I said earlier, This is not the first time I have reviewed a red wine by Matt and after reviewing this particular wine, it definitely won't be my last either. This is a full bodied Burgundy style red wine like to the max. Darkness is an important part of this wine and if I could relate it to an 80's music band(s) I would say it is like The Cure or Joy Division. There is no playing around here and therefore the wine stands proud to be what it is which is a very nicely crafted & most definitely serious, red wine blend. Word to the wise! Because of how the wine presents itself, I must issue a warning to those of you who are looking for an easy drinking red as this is not that wine. If you are a red wine lover who is used to what the likes of a Stags Leap, Peju or BV wineries puts out then consider this wine to have been specifically designed for you. On the other hand if you are looking for a Barefoot or Cupcake type.... red wine(?), this should not be your first, second or even last choice. On The Desert Wine Guy rating scale I am giving this wine a well deserved 94 points.

                                                                                                                                     The Desert Wine Guy

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P.S - While writing this review I was unable to find anything on line concerning the makeup of it as far as varietals go. As a wine reviewer I find this to be a unfortunet and it is like this with all of the wines that Naked Wines sells. As I previously said, I tried contacting Matt on Social Media with some questions and to my surprise, he actually answered me, like......right away. This is another plus for not only Matt but Naked Wines as well because this is not the first time I have contacted one of their winemakers and gotten a response and within a very reasonable time frame. Keep in mind that I am in no way getting anything from Naked wines to say these things and as I said, I am actually a member and put out the $40 each month because I really believe in the companies business model and the winemakers as well. As I went to edit this article, I actually stopped and purchased (yep, my money again) yet another case of wine from Naked Wines which includes another bottle of this particular wine (cellar time) as well as Matt's 2018 Napa Valley, Cabernet Sauvignon and the 2019 "The 24" - Contra Costa Zinfandel as well. I will keep you updated on how these wines turned out here on my wine blog.
 

The Desert Wine Guy - Vinesse Wine Club, A Ripoff

 What is going on guys? Today I want to do a short review of a wine club named Vinesse which is a subsidiary of American Cellars Wine Club. Keep in mind that I am not a stranger to reviewing wine clubs as I have reviewed a few of them on this site. During these reviews the two that I found were good was the Wine of The Month Club (https://www.winemonthclub.com/) & Naked Wines (https://us.nakedwines.com//). Here is my review of both the Wine Of The Month Club  (https://desertwineguy.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-desert-wine-guy-my-recent.html) as well as Naked Wines (https://desertwineguy.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-desert-wine-guy-my-review-of-naked.html). By the way, I also happen to belong to Naked Wines and give them $40 each month. So, why am I writing this review? My answer to that question is that I am very upset, allow me to explain why and I think you might be as well. The other day....and the day before....and the day before that and two weeks prior to that I received the above offer(s) in my mailbox and I finally got tired of throwing the mail out and decided to open it up and see what it is all about, after all it did have to do with wine. As you can see from the photo above, the offer sounded really good and was for an introductory offer of 6 bottles of wine along with a "free gift worth $50" (2 additional bottles of wine) for a total of 8 bottles. The total for these 8 bottles is  $29.99 + $10 for Shipping & Handling.

Vinesse Shipping Charges

 Okay, so far, this sounds like a good deal and if you also think that it sounds like a good deal you would of course be correct. Now keep in mind that you are also agreeing to join the club and receive a shipment of wine each month which is normal for these wine clubs. Well folks, I went ahead and read a little further into what the company offers and here are the problems that I found.
   Let's begin by talking about a generic wine that Vinesse sells. Vinesse sells this generic wine for $20 and let's say for arguments sake that that is a good deal, here is where the first part of what I consider to be a ripoff, comes into play. The first part of this ripoff is the fact that Vinesse charges $21 to ship that $20 bottle of wine to you. Yes, you read that correctly, $21. If you think that Vinesse charging $21 for shipping a bottle of wine is bad, just wait because you ain't seen nothing yet. If you thought that Vinesse is done charging you for shipping for that the one bottle, you would be wrong again and this is where the second part of this ripoff comes in. Vinesse isn't done charging you shipping for that one bottle of wine because they also have a.......wait for it.....surcharge. Yes folks, a surcharge and if you need your wine shipped to one of  23 states (one of which is mine) Vinesse will hit you with a surcharge of 17% and if you need that wine sent to PA and IL, that surcharge jumps to 20%. Keep in mind that according to a big wine magazine, winery direct (which is what Vinesse claims to be) shipping is prohibited in four states so that is a lot of states that will be paying that crazy surcharge. For the remainder of the states they charge a 10% surcharge. I bet that now you think they are done charging you for delivery huh? If you thought that your wrong again because there's more, there is yet another surcharge.

Naked Wines - Shipping Charges

This surcharge is a 3% surcharge for those of us who live in a "residence", Yes folks, Vinesse charges you a surcharge because you live in a residence which is otherwise known as where you live. I guess they believe that wines from an on-line wine club are not normally sent to a residence.
   Let me tell you guys a little something. I recently ordered a bottle of Chardonnay from the Napa Valley winery, Black Stallion (https://www.blackstallionwinery.com/) and they charged me $14 to ship it. Guys, anytime a Napa Valley winery is cheaper than a retailer, in anything, something is indeed, way wrong. Now as I tell you this please remember that I actually give $40 a month (I'm a member) to the wine club I am about to mention which is Naked Wines. Naked Wines charges $9.99 to ship anything under $100. Now I didn't say that 9.99 is per bottle because that is not the case. If your order totals $99.99 or less, that order ships for a flat $9.99. If you order $100 or more, it ships for free as does Vinesse but since Vinesse doesn't believe that surcharges for delivery are actual delivery charges, you will still pay them so it's not free at all. Getting back to Naked Wines for a minute, I just today received six bottles of wine that I ordered from them and it shipped for free. Looking at their shipping charge, Vinesse would have charged me $30 + all the other surcharges..
   There you have it folks, do you see now why I am so upset? I hope that if you are in the market for a wine club that I have helped you in narrowing down your search. If you want to pay out the butt for shipping, perhaps you will like being a member of Vinesse but if you are like me and will not do business with what I consider to be a dishonest company, I would stay far away from them.

                                                                                                                                     The Desert Wine Guy

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