2024 Sunshine Bay, Sauvignon Blanc

 The other day I was at Aldis doing a small bit of shopping when I happened to pass by the wine section. I thought, would you just look at that, the wine section. One of the wines that caught my eye was todays review wine which is a Sauvignon Blanc. The bottle had a sticker on it that said the wine was rated 93 points by something named "Wine Orbit". I don't know about you but I have never heard of Wine Orbit but I figured it was a good enough reason for me to buy the bottle :) I guess I figured if  Wine Orbit liked the wine so much, it had to be good...right? Having gotten the wine home and am now sitting in front of my computer I see that the site claims to be "a website that provides reviews of New Zealand wines and wines from around the world." Okay so the site sounds interesting but can they rate a wine? We will now find out.

   Today I will be taking a look at the 2024 Sunshine Bay, Sauvignon Blanc. I paid $8.99 for the wine and the bottle is screw cap sealed. The wine comes in at 12.5% alcohol and its grapes come from the Marlborough region (Wairau Valley) of New Zealand. 

   On the nose I'll let you know that my glass is about two feet away from me and I am definitely picking up lemongrass, fresh, very fresh smelling lemongrass. There appears to be a nice, bright vibrancy to the bouquet even from this distance. Bringing the glass to my nose now, that lemongrass is indeed very forward and smells inviting for sure. There is almost a musky greenish type note to the wine as well and if that sounds weird, I will let you know that the wine doesn't smell weird that's for sure, it actually smells very inviting.

   On the palate now, I have to right away let you know that the wine disappoints. I guess I'm getting ahead of myself though so allow me to back up a bit. There is a watery sort of dominance to the wine. This watery taste is fairly forward and is what I seem to remember as long as the wine sits in my mouth. There is lemongrass here on the palate but that wateriness...blandness note really deadens...softens it a great deal. Acidity is a bit on the high side and a bit unbalanced as well in my opinion. On the sides of my palate is where I semi enjoyed the wine as it seemed to exhibit a very nice brilliance of sorts. Passion fruit is here as well and it is forward. This passion fruit is really the fruit that stands out to. This passion fruit really does its best to fight off that wateriness and to its credit, it does a good job at it but in the end, fails to do so. There is a greenness to this wine that I thought was a bit to much as it seemed to add a good amount of driness to the wine. Minerality here is way overdone and leads to a wine that is more stone tasting than anything else. Lime is here but it has zero sharpness...zero freshness to it. As a matter of fact, the wine would have better without this note. 

   So...now that you have read all of the above and you are rightfully expecting me to bomb this wine, you need to read on. Keep in mind that this is a wine and not a beer so sipping, tasting is a big part of a review. Having said this I have to let you know that the wine developed after a while into a wine that originally was headed for 84 points but turned into an 89 point wine in the end which is a big jump. The flavor developed and was actually very nice. The wine amazingly became fresh, bright and tasty. That blandness (watery note) is gone...like, completely. What replaced this blandness is flavor, flavor of fresh lemongrass, a nice lemongrass. Acidity ended up remaining on the slightly high end but became on point and nice. Minerality remains but unfortunately it still isn't that great. The passion fruit was bright and flavorful while giving way to the wines other notes. The wine in the end was juicy and wasn't shy at all about expressing itself. Okay folks, I do believe this review has gone on long enough. I will see you in the next paragraph and wrap this all up. 

   Okay so, do I recommend this wine? The answer is, yeah, if you want to open a wine and let it sit for 45 minutes, I recommend it, it's decent. What this wine is is a slightly above average wine for the price. After 45 minutes the wine has finally come into its own and is on the enjoyable side. Now guys, don't get me wrong, this is not the finest Sauvignon Blanc I have tasted but it earned its place. As for a pool wine, if waiting 45 minutes for your guests to taste it works for you than yeah, it can be but I myself wouldn't do that as this is a long time for a wine to find itself, too long. In the end, the wine was worth the effort if you decant it and have something else to do in the meantime.

 

                                                                                               The Desert Wine Guy

 

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2022 Edna Valley, Chardonnay

   What's up wine lovers? today I had the opportunity to take a trip with one of my kids to Gainesville, Florida as there was a record store we had to check out. Of course we also had to do some lunch so we stopped at a sushi restaurant and had some amazing sushi. Right next door to the sushi restaurant was a wine shop but not just any wine shop, this was a place named The Good Pour (https://goodpour.com/). While I won't get into the details of the store here in this review, I will say it was a very nice wine shop and a wine shop that I certainly will be doing a review of very shortly. Guys, I was impressed overall with the store and I can't wait to tell you about it. In the meantime, I will tell you that I high;y recommend you visit one of their locations if you are in the Central Florida area. Now it is time to review one of the wines I bought while at the store.

   Today I will be taking a look at the 2022 Edna Valley, Chardonnay. As I said earlier, I visited a new wine store today. While I was there I picked up two wines from wineries that I had never heard of before with one being today's review wine. I paid $13.99 for this wine and the bottle is cork sealed. The wine comes in at 13.5% alcohol and the grapes for it come from the Edna Valley AVA located in  San Luis Obispo  County, California. 

   Let's talk label now. I think this is a wonderful label for a white wine. The label is mostly all white and what really sets it off is the where the gold color is used and how that gold frames the wineries name. Take a good look at the label guys, isn't that awesome? I especially live the gold colored Crest that is in the center of the label. All around this is an very nice label and one which presents the wine inside very nicely.

   Okay than, on the nose, the wine is extremely limited and puts off a huge note or impression at least of a wine that is vanilla dominated like big time. There is some oak as well and the impression at least of a wine that is going to be almost ayrupy tasting as well.

   On the palate now, there is an oak note here and it is right up there a feared note of butteriness. Adding to these two notes is an ever so slight alcohol burn that I picked up on the finish. On the fruit end, as I feared, I am picking up an almost syrupy...green pear...nectar driven Chardonnay. Making matters even worse is a huge (nasty) note of Vanilla, yeah guys, vanilla. To make matters even worse, there is also a crazy sweetness element to the wine that just adds to its destruction. Guys...I can't...I simply can't go on with this review. The wine sucks! I will see you in the next paragraph to wrap this review up. 

   Look guys, there are many, many people out there who will absolutely just love this wine. I myself can't understand why or how they will but wine is subjective and what I rate at 83, some might rate at 92. If this wine is your style than you have found a winner, buy it by the case, it's cheap enough. If, on the other hand, you expect much more from a Chardonnay, stay farrrrr away from this wine. On The Desert Wine Guy rating scale I am indeed giving this wine 83 points. As a matter of fact, I am going to rate this wine as undrinkable because to me it is that bad.

 

                                                                                               The Desert Wine Guy 

 

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2023 Art Of The Cooper, Chardonnay - Special Selection

 

   I don't know about you guys but I do not like it when I have only one store to choose from that carries either one specific item or is the only store of its kind. What my issue specifically is here is that in Florida we basically have one grocery store to choose from and that store is Publix. I remember when I first moved from Las Vegas, the first grocery store I went into was Publix and man was I amazed at just how high priced they were. In Vegas my family and I were use to Smiths (Kroger), Albertsons & Vons and they each competed against one another for our business which meant we, the consumer, got the best price. I bring this up because I went to Publix the other day to get a bottle of wine as I was very simply too lazy to drive to the mom & pop wine shop I normally go to and the wine prices were super high. While Publix was always high priced, their wines were never this high priced. I think for now being lazy is out of the question and a short drive is in order as it is pretty sad when a huge grocery store chain is beaten out by a small family owned wine shop. I will just leave you guys with this and that is "Caveat emptor" which means, let the buyer beware.

   Okay than, we are here today to learn about the 2023 Art Of The Cooper, Chardonnay - Special Selection. I recently did a review of the 2018 Art Of The Cooper, Sauvignon Blanc and found it to be an amazing wine so I figured when I saw this label again, I would jump on the chance to review it. I paid $9.99 for the wine and the bottle is cork sealed. The wine itself comes in at 14.5% alcohol which I find to be slightly high and its grapes come from the Napa Valley. For what it's worth, this is a "special selection" Chardonnay and in a few I will see just how special it is :) 

    Now label wise, I absolutely just love it. Click on the picture of the wine guys and take a look for yourselves, I ask you, is it not amazing? I just love the charcoal color of the label with the gold lettering and symbol. I think the white being chosen for the vintage color really helps in setting the label off as it provides just a bit of needed contrast here. While the term "special selection" probably doesn't really mean anything, I love how the winery put a small label located in the corner to advertising it.

    On the nose now, I get what appears to be a baked, green pear type sweetness which appears at least as if it is going to dominate the palate. There is however, a liveliness to the nose but that sweetness perception has me concerned. This wines bouquet is limited to that pear note. 

   So, here we go now, how does the wine come across on the palate? The first think I picked up here is a spice to the wine. For a second I actually had to sit back and think about what I was actually tasting as I am not use to a Chardonnay having this level of spice. After taking a second or two to analyze what I was tasting, I realized that I like it. The spice while forward is very nicely presented and the wine is also so very well balanced, whomever the winemaker is, knows his or her stuff. Acidity is on the high side here which is a perfect match for not only the level of spice but the wine in general as a whole. Fruit? You want fruit? Well, let's talk because I am getting a bit of ripe, baked green pear that is surprisingly on the more subtle side when compared to the nose and while I understand the word "subtle" may seem like a bad thing, in this particular case, it is not a bad thing by any means. Having smelled the wine, I thought the pear would be a good bit more pronounced but thankfully this was not happening.

This pear is not sappy or sickeningly sweet as many inexpensive Chardonnays love to put on display. Far too many times I have tasted baked green pear in a Chardonnay and found it to ruin a wine, this however is not that wine. A tinge of green apple is here as well and it comes in on the finish of the wine...its good. Oak. Yes, there is some oak here but again, it is well integrated and is not presented in a bad way at all. Speaking of oak, what would you expect from a winery whose name is Art of The Cooper as a Cooper is a after all a barrel maker. Here is where I bergin to have an issues with this wine as Vanilla is here as well and it does seem to also add a bit of sweetness to the wine. This is a sweetness that I could have done without and unfortunately it only increases as the wine develops. At first I was thinking that because the wine was warming a bit its sweetness was increasing but even when I put the bottle back in the ice bucket, the wine continued to develop along this path. It seemed that the wine was developing continuously and in a negative way.as that development continued to bring along increasing Vanilla sweetness with it. The wine does fight hard to maintain itself and it is fairly successful but in the end that vanilla sweetness really does it in. As a last note, there is some fresh tasting yellow peach here as well. This peach is a nice addition to the wine and it is incorporated very well into the wine as well and I enjoyed it. There was a crispness to the wine that while on the lighter side, was good. Sadly in the end I have to say that the wine was originally headed for a rating of 95 points but as the wine developed (changed) it kind of went sideways, it changed and became a wine that I cannot recommend.. So, there you have it guys, this review is done and I will see you in the next paragraph to give you my final thoughts and rating.

   Here at the conclusion of this review, the one thing I noticed is that the wine seems to warm...change rather quickly and that isn't good but there is more. I also noticed that that the wine will sweeten a good bit if allowed to cool and as the wine opens up, not even chilling it holds this sweetening back. At first I really loved the wine, it had high acidity and a peppery note to it. to. The wine was a bit on the crisp side but that kind of fell off as well as the sweetness increased. In the end, that darn sweetness really did a number on the wine in my opinion and because of that, on The Desert Wine Guy rating scale, I am giving this wine 91 points. While the wine was originally headed towards my cellar, it took a dramatic turn and avoided it. 

 

                                                                                              The Desert Wine Guy

 

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