Today I decided to kill my cellphone battery, I mean to zero. Yeah, I know, you're probably saying, so what? Well, ya see, let me explain For the past two months it has been too hot to sit out back on my laptop and review a wine so I figured that today would be the same and I could do without my cell phone for a few hours, I would survive :) Yeah....unfortunately God had a sense of humor today and it ended up being just beautiful outside and so guess where I am right now? Yep, you guessed right, I am happily out back on my laptop. Take a guess though as well as to who has to charge not only a wireless speaker in order to hear some much needed music but his dead cellphone and a laptop as well? You got it, this guy. You should see my rather small table here as it is filled up with electronics and wires. My laptop which is used to being on the table by itself is like, "dude, what is going on" ? This same table is also saying, "what is with the Sun" as well? Guys, it's all good though as it is just amazing outside today. By the way, I learned a lesson a while ago that I will share with you now. All liquids have their own dedicated table and all electronics have their own dedicated table...please don't ask. So there ya have it, this review is set up and now, after a long, hard day in the garden I finally get a chance to chill out and review a wine so let's get into that review right now.
Today I will be taking a look at the 2019 Côtes du Rhône Esprit Barville Blanc. I bought this wine at my local mom & pop wine shop here in central "Freedom" Florida and I paid $13.99 for it. The wine comes in at 13.5% alcohol and the bottle is unfortunately screw cap sealed. As far as the making of the wine goes, according to the winery, it sat on the lees with regular stirring in stainless steel vats for 6 months.
Looking at the label now, it is a French label and I will not make any apologies, for telling you that I have no idea what the heck anything on it even says. I am American and I stick to my countries language. Having said this, please don't misunderstand me as I have nothing against anyone who learns other languages it's just that I am happy with and have a hard enough time with proper English :) Okay, back to the label now. I love it. For me, there is nothing like a French wine label to show off a bottle of wine and this label is no exception. The fonts chosen on these labels and their size really set a wine bottle off in a way that is inexpiable. These labels (as is the case here) almost always seem to have that smaller label just above the main label and again, I love it.
As for this French wines bouquet characteristics, I am picking up notes of apricot, white flowers and a tropical dew as well as a melon of some sort. I get the impression of a possible slight viscosity showing up on the palate though which I hope is not the case but we will see about that right now.
Alright French white wine fans, let's discuss palate on this wine now. Starting off here, this is a dry wine with an initial bit of an alcohol burn offered up front as well. The good news here is that that burn disappears almost immediately after the wine is opened so there should be no concerns there.
A light note of yellow peach comes into play but it is presented in the same way everything else is here which is rather momentarily. Very quickly, along comes a sort of unripe apricot but this unripe apricot is good, it is flavorful, just not sweet which is perfectly fine by me. Throughout the wines palate presentation, there is a dryness aspect as I already mentioned earlier and this dryness aspect is sort of like a "carrier wave" (hello radio fans) that all of the other notes seem to ride on and, it is nice. There is a noticeable spice to the wine as well and that comes into play on the finish however this is okay as it is very well placed and non offensive. This spice overall does succeed in assisting in the wines ability to express what it needs to. This spice is
also very effective in adding a slight
amount of complexity to the wine however, that is the extent of the complexity
unfortunately. A lemon note comes into play here as well and the typical twang a lemon would normally offer up is thankfully reserved for the very end of the finish and even there, it isn't crazy or over the top, it is just lightly on the brighter side and works well with the wine in general. The wine also possesses just the smallest amount of sweetness but very quickly (like very quickly) it moves forward away from that and lets you know, it is indeed a dry wine. The wine does offer up a stone note but it is more of an underlying note and is kind of light on the palate overall. A pineapple note is here as well and it is a bit more forward then the other notes without creating a white wine that is dominated by the fruit. A really nice note of white flowers is expressed throughout the palate presentation and that is really nice as it sustains itself throughout the entire wine as well. Asian Pear is here as well and this is a note that you won't be able to miss because it feels as if some of the sweetness the wine offers up, comes from here. Another note (a combo note) that adds just a bit of sweetness consists
of a nectarine/honeydew combo. This sweetness is nothing that ruins the
wine nor does it even come close but it will be noticed so I did need to mention it. 
In case you were wondering, the possible viscosity that I thought might appear here on the palate did not appear and I am thankful for that. Despite all of this, the wine struck me as being rather limited on the palate. As I already said, the wine does not have any complexity and to sum it up in two words, it's simple. This is not French white that you will think to deep or too much about nor do I think that it is meant to be. Well guys, there you have it, another wine review completed and I will see you in the next paragraph to give you my final feelings on it.
In the end, the wine was certainly worth the price but don't expect there to be too much to it. There was fresh fruit and some liveliness but it just seemed.....limited.....lacking in some areas. For the pool, you will find it works out very nicely and I do believe guests will be pleased. On The Desert Wine Guy rating scale I am giving the wine 87 points. While the wine was not offensive in anyway, I just wish it would have been more fine tuned and offered up a lot more then what it did.
The Desert Wine Guy
