Big Red Monster Edition
There’s a lot of noise about the re-design of the bottle.
Sure, I will buy a wine because I like a bottle or the design of the label on
the bottle or whatever, but I won’t buy it again, unless I really like the
actual wine that’s in the bottle. In
this case, I like this wine considerably. It is a fruity wine, decently
balanced, not a lot of bite to it, but not particularly smooth, either. It
tastes “big” and bold, along the lines of a Cab, but much more appealing and
that’s probably due to the blend of Syrah, Zinfandel, and Petite Sirah that
comprise this blend.
This is a deep, dark red wine and the color seems to tie in
well with the mystery of its respective origins. Most of that won’t matter
greatly in a blend as long as it strikes the right notes. This one could use a
bit more balance, but is very drinkable and is good for hanging out and sipping
while watching shows, for instance, my particular main use of it.
There is no great complexity, especially here, but it does
do better with a bit of air time, say 15 – 30 minutes. It would probably be at
least acceptable out of the gate though a lot of the rough elements vanish
pretty rapidly, so giving it at least some time out of the bottle before
drinking will yield best results.
As enjoyable as this was, there are much stronger entries on
the list and this surpasses none of those in my regular current rotation, so
it’s not quite up to a new Standard. I don’t recall seeing in on SPA ever,
either, so thus, it comes in as a Mixed.
