Thursday, June 29, 2023

Agriculturist, Non-Vintage, White Wine Blend

 

   
  Are you guys big into the whole "organic" thing? Are you willing to spend more money on fruits & vegetables that were (supposedly) grown without the use of artificial chemicals or pesticides? For me, I am sort of into the whole buying organic fruits and vegetables thing provided they are not overly expensive. What I have never bought though is an organic wine, that is until yesterday, and which just so happens to also be our review wine today. How did I come across today's review wine, well ya see, there I was at my local wine shop and I wanted something different. To be honest, I was growing kind of tired of the typical Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay expressions that I have been reviewing...at least for a day or so that is :) and I wanted something different, something unique. So I'm in the store and I went to the white wine section and in that section was a subsection that said something like "other whites". Well, I thought, let's see what they have. I ended up finding a wine that I was really intrigued by because of the way it was made, it was organic.
Before I move on and get into the wine itself though, I think that you have to think about something, and I can be completely wrong here but my thoughts are that unless you are going to go totally organic, or at least mostly, why bother spending the extra money in the first place? Sure, I guess every bit of clean food helps but how much does it really help and is it at that point really worth the extra money? Let me know your thoughts on this guys, I'm curious. Right now though it is time to check out today's wine, I will see you in the next section.  
   Today I am going to check out the organic and non-vintage, Agriculturist, white wine blend. I paid $11.99 for this wine and the alcohol percentage comes in at 13.5%. The bottle is cork sealed and its grapes simply come from California. The wine is actually part of the Frey Vineyards lineup but on their website (https://www.freywine.com/product/Organic-Agriculturist-Blanc--NV?pageID=8F038AC8-E133-D06E-4E9A-4700ACD8700A&sortBy=DisplayOrder&maxRows=10&) they, unfortunately, don't have very much to say about it.
   Now as far as the label goes, it is super busy. Take a look at the label for yourself folks, do you guys find it to be crazy as well? I guess you can take your pick as to whether or not to use the words crazy or busy in describing the label but to me, it is just screaming to get the attention I think it rightfully deserves. To me, the label looks like an advertisement for a carnival of some kind. I am not normally really into crazy labels such as this but in this case, being that the wine is an inexpensive, non-vintage, white blend, I really did get into it and think it is super nice.
   Appearance-wise in my glass now, the wine initially comes across as a lightish gold and that gold shows for a lot of the wine although it appears to eventually move into being clear in color as the sits open for a bit which I find rather weird.
   As for the nose now, I am getting a slightly subdued peach as well as a slightly subdued nectarine as well. Finishing the bouquet off is a bit of a fresh honey note as well.
   It is palate time now guys and I would like to start off here by first telling you what I am expecting from this white wine blend. I am expecting a semi-sweet, tropically fruity, white wine. Normally this is not my preferred style of wine but with the weather outside right now here in "Freedom" Florida being rather humid and warm, I will be very happy with that if I can indeed get it. Starting off here, the first thing that I noticed was that there is a carbonation to the wine and this kind of immediately threw my palate off a bit. What I found truly bothersome though is that the wine also has almost a slight seltzer taste to it which I found to be really off-putting and as you can imagine, is a note that should not be offered up in any wine. Now, there is fruit to the wine in the form of the same apricot and peach that I got on the nose but unfortunately, the fruit comes across as being rather unripe and doesn't do anything to uplift the wine up instead merely allowing it to continue on with what ended up being a downhill kind of slide. I am also getting a honey note here that I picked up on the nose and it is not honeysuckle, but what comes across as a bit of pure and fresh honey and while it is nice, it can't change anything here in the wine as it is simply, in general, coming across as just.... "off". My palate is just not mixing with this wine well at all folks and I need to let you know very quickly that I am beginning to feel that this wine might be headed towards being a disaster overall.
Now acidity is fairly moderate here and would normally be considered by me to be very enjoyable as you can tell it wants to do its job but sadly, there are way too many negative things going on in the wine to allow that to happen. As I said earlier, while there is a fruity note to the wine which is coming from that peach and apricot, that fruity aspect is ultimately destroyed rather fast as the wine quickly opens and becomes....a wine that is just extremely disjointed and erratic in its presentation. Topping all of this off and putting the nail in the final coffin is a bitter note that the wine just seems to love to exude and it is bad guys, this note really is the topping off to what I consider to be a badly made white wine. With all of this being said, I am going to cut this review short, as in ending it right now, and let you know I will see you in the conclusion paragraph.
   Now that we are here, I want to let you know that I don't think this wine is something the winery has put any serious thought into. Non-vintage, has no tech sheet, and a simple and generic "California" as far as where the grapes are grown....yeah....too bad, I truly expected more from it. On The Desert Wine Guy, I am giving this wine 84 points and I do not suggest you buy it for any occasion.

                                                                                                The Desert Wine Guy

Tuesday, June 6, 2023

The Desert Wine Guy - 2017 Barrel Burner, Chardonnay

 

 

    I don't like people who talk about a topic as if they are knowledgeable about that topic but in the end, they actually know nothing about it. Today I was bored and did a quick search on YouTube concerning the company Naked Wines. I clicked on the first video I saw which took me to a guy's page where he proceeded to tell us all that he wasn't much of a drinker. This guy was unboxing six wines that he got from the company, Naked Wines and immediately proceeded to tell us all how he overpaid for the wines because they were cheap (think bad) wines. Now keep in mind that admittedly he hadn't even tasted any of the wines yet but he was already judging them. As folks who read this blog I ask you, how would you feel if I told you upfront that I wasn't going to actually taste a particular wine but was going to rate it very well? Yeah, that is what this guy is doing. Now before I go on, I need to let you know that I don't care if you ever buy anything from Naked Wines as I have no skin in the game but what I do care about is someone who goes out of his or her way to purposefully mislead people in any area. To me, it's like this guy does have something against the company like he does have some skin in the game. He then proceeded to talk about the winemakers who he felt without any supporting evidence were "new to winemaking" and that was the wines you were buying. One of those winemakers who is "new to winemaking" (not) is Dave Harvey. Now again, I don't know Mr. Harvey but just a little bit of research showed that he actually has 25 years of experience making wines and has worked for some prestigious wineries. I guess I shouldn't let this stuff bother me but unfortunately, it just does. In the end here, I can only suggest that people "stay in their own lane" if you know what I mean. Now, I feel so much better guys having said all this I think I will do a review on the failings of the human heart....nah, just kidding. Let's get into today's wine review :)
   Today I will be revisiting (taking a re-look) at the 2017 Barrel Burner, Chardonnay. I reviewed this wine before but haven't posted that review and I don't recall what I rated it at the time. At the end of this re-look, I will check that review and see how the scores compare. The bottled is cork sealed and cost me $13.99 and was bought from Naked Wines. The wine is a blend of three different grape varietals which are 89% Chardonnay, 9% Roussanne, 2% Marsanne. The wine was aged for 6 months on 25% medium plus toasted new French Oak. Alcohol-wise, the wine comes in at what I consider to be a rather high percentage of 14.4%. The winemakers are Nicholas & Marshall Miller and the grapes for this wine come from the Paso Robles Highlands District in California.
   Checking out the label here, I really like it. I just love the burnt parchment paper look to it. The label even almost feels like a parchment paper, it's cool. The look of the paper being chard really gives life to the fonts used and their placement on the label really helps in setting it off. 
   Let's go ahead now and check out the bouquet of this white wine. Overall, I am getting notes of very ripe nectarine as well as some oak and white flowers. While I do enjoy the nose of the wine, at the same time I hope the palate isn't overly dominated by these notes in a super tropical way.
   As far as the palate characteristics of the wine are concerned, here is what I am getting. The wine starts off not too well as I am getting a noticeable alcohol burn in my chest. While there is a possibility of that burn disappearing after the wine opens a bit, at this time that is not something I can testify to. Moving on now, I can testify to the fact that the wine is buttery....did I say buttery, yeah guys, buttery :( Now before I go on, let me tell you that I do not care for Chardonnays that lean towards the buttery side, like at all. This particular wine doesn't just lean however, it falls.....flat. Lush and overly tropical green pear is a pretty big player here guys and while it is certainly fresh and juicy, it is just sweet and just isn't fitting in with that butteriness very well at all. There is definitely a "lushness" to the wine as the Naked Wines website says, however....(dramatic pause for effect)....that lushness helps to create a wine that is.....picked up as being heavy on the palate, almost with a viscosity of sorts. Add this to that sweetness and you have a bad mix. Okay guys, vanilla. I get that this is a Chardonnay that sat in oak and I get that vanilla is a note that is to be expected from a white wine sitting in oak but to this extent? Really? I think it is way overdone. Acidity-wise, there is nice acidity here, and in a good wine that had some other things working for it, it would work out well but here, yeah, it doesn't help the wine out any. Okay, guys, I am done with this wine, I don't want to (can't) continue on as the wine is just not good. I will see you in the conclusion paragraph.
   Alright, Chardonnay lovers, I am sorry the ending of this review was so abrupt but...well.....does the word "gross" mean anything? I guess perhaps I am simply not getting the point of this wine. The wine is not a clean, crisp, minerality-driven, Chardonnay. That is the Chardonnay expression I am more partial to for sure. If this is your preference as well then you can flat-out forget about buying this wine as it is oceans apart from that style of Chardonnay. I get that there are so many Chardonnays today that have the same characteristics as this particular wine but this wine takes that to the max. I have to just come out and say (again) that I am not a lover of this wine at all, I don't like it. On The Desert Wine Guy rating scale, I am giving this wine 85 points which it just so happens to be the original rating I gave this wine a few months ago.
 
P.S - By the way, that alcohol burn never did leave the wine and it persisted for the entire review which in total was about an hour as I never like to rush to judgment about any wine.  
 
                                                                                                The Desert Wine Guy

 


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