BOOZE TYPE: Wine
PRICE: $7.99 at Astor Center
RATING: B-
I’ve been trying to do Spanish wines lately, because I think I like them… at least, I know I like a bunch of Portuguese stuff, and they’re like totally right next to each other? So I fussed over the Spanish selections in my wine shop and picked out this one, which met at the vertex of ‘price’ and ‘interesting blurb on the name card.’
When I poured this one out and stuck my nose in the glass, I thought, ‘Ah! This has the aroma of… wine! Yes, this definitely smells like wine! Red wine, even! Oh, by jove! It tastes like red wine, too!” …This is just sort of run-of-the-mill, one of the ones folk’ll call “drinkable” and not mean it as an insult. I tossed a glass into the pasta sauce I was making to great effect. This is kind of the perfect wine to cook with: good enough to drink on its own, but not so full of character as to overpower your dish.
This one definitely improved as it sat around in my bedroom and opened up more. When I didn’t have tomato sauce confusing my palate (though it went very well in and with the tomato sauce), I got some nice mineraly, chalky hints in the scent, and a spicy, kind of coffee flavor. The back of the label says it has hints of “licorice mint” and honestly that is just nonsense. Seriously, wine people, that is just nonsense. And if it weren’t nonsense, it would probably taste nasty. Dang!
BUY IT AGAIN: Probably not. It’s decent, but it didn’t wow me, and I’d rather explore more. It’s basically exactly what you’d expect from an $8 wine.
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