Bad Wine

I’ve taken quite a break from blogging about wine…not to say that I haven’t been drinking it (winky face)…I just haven’t been writing about it. I’m not sure why I stopped writing about wine–life, I guess. But, I got a new motivation to start writing about wine: BAD WINE.

I think I can proudly say these two bottles are THE WORST bottles of wine I’ve ever tasted.

I was on vacation in the Bahamas and we picked up a couple bottles. Lamothe Parrot. Thumbs down. They tasted like grape juice that had been left out for about a week in the dead summer. Looking at the label closer now the one on the left just says “Selection.” What the heck does that mean? Haha. Then the one on the right says “mellow reserve.” Maybe mellow is code word for awful in french.

I definitely don’t think that these wines represent French wines. I need to find some good ones cause I’ve heard so many good things about French wines.

If you ever see these bottles…just pass them by. Not worth it.

1 out of 10.

xo

Kate

Gothic Wine?

Hey look, you can kind of see me in the reflection of the bottle taking this pic! Haha. Another artistic display of a wine bottle. Speaking of…I know there are all sorts of awesome things you can do with wine bottles once they are empty and if I weren’t on the road I’d be keeping each & every one of them. But I don’t think a suitcase full of empty wine bottles will bode well for my reputation or my back. Haha.

Anytime I glanced at this bottle I thought I was reading Agothic Red. Haha…that would be quite a name for a bottle don’t you think? But no….this was yet another bottle out of California and it was another blend! This was by far the SWEETEST red wine to date. It was thick too. Almost too sweet and almost too thick for my liking. I’ve never really had a thick wine before. It kind of had a metal-ish flavor too which then really wigged me out cause it made me think that I was drinking blood. Probably just a little too Twilighted out….

Again, I should have read the back of the bottle to see what blends I was getting but all I know is they were mashing up some sweet grapes cause this bottle was sweeeeeet. At the end of my glass there was something weird…it looked like little crusties sitting at the bottom of my glass. What the? Where did they come from? At first I thought maybe a piece of cork had fallen into the bottle when I opened it but upon further investigation these little guys were not cork. They were dark, and little….maybe 12 of them at the bottom of the glass. I poured another for a friend and sure enough they had them as well. Is that just what wine does sometimes? Is that a bad thing? I don’t know but I’m determined to find out what these wine crusties do.

Overall…I’d give this wine a 6.

xo

-k

A Cab.

My third bottle is a fun one to say: Cabernet Sauvignon. What is the appropriate way to say this? I’m googling. Stand by. After googling “Cabernet Sauvignon pronounce” I found this:

Phonetic Pronunciation: ka-bur-nay so-vee-nyo

Let’s just all be honest here. I’ve never said that right in my life. When I say this word out loud…which I’ve maybe done thrice in my life…I generally say “ka-bern-ay salve-eon”

Anyway… this is another bottle from California…Napa Valley. It’s on my bucket list to go to the Valley of the Napa’s and drink wine and ride bikes through the orchards. Think of all the blogging I could do from that little haven…mmmm…..soon or someday.

This bottle boasted that it was a certain case number…blah dee blah…no idea what that means but it made it look a bit importante. As I poured this into my glass I realized it was very dark. Like, you couldn’t really see through it. It was bitter at first taste. This wine didn’t really do anything for me. It was fine. Nothing really jumped out at me. Kinda boring I guess.

I’d give this one a 4.

xo

-k

A Blend Who? A Blend What?

Okay…I did something silly with this bottle. I was so taken by how pretty the bottle was that I didn’t pay close attention to the back of the bottle when it described what blends it was made up of. Smart move Kate. Good job.

This was my first red blend to review…A 2010 R Collection Field Blend. Okay…I loved the calligraphy on the outside of the bottle. It just looks romantic from the writing, doesn’t it? Like just with one letter this bottle is going to sweep you away to some sort of fairy land…okay…maybe only if you drink the entire bottle fairies might appear..hahaa.

This was a weird bottle for me once it was opened though. I smelled it first…only because that’s what I see people do sometimes when they open a bottle so I thought I should do the same. It was stinky. Literally….it smelled like weird tuna or something. Totally weirded me out. When I poured a glass and took a first sip it was tart. Like, super tart…like, chewy Spree tart. I was disappointed and went about my business thinking this was a bottle for the bad list. But after about 30 minutes I came back to take another sip (cause really I’m not that stupid and not gonna leave a glass full now….) and the flavor had changed. It was like magic.

It was not as smelly and not as tart. It’s like when it had time to get used to it’s new home…aka…my glass it let it’s guard down. It dropped all it’s tart/tangy /bitter pretense and was easy going and smooth. I imagine how a lawyer is on a first date. Yikes. That was weird. Not sure where that one came from.

Anyway…lesson learned today is that leaving a glass of wine alone for a bit can mean good things. A more developed flavor. It can also leave ample room for a fruit fly to land in your wine. Not cool. What is up with fruit flies and wine? Someone tell me? Are there just AA meetings filled with thousands of fruit flies. They just swim in it. Gross. I had to scoop one out of my glass with a spoon…but believe you me…I finished the glass. That’s right. No fruit fly is gonna spoil my glass.

I’d give this bottle a 5.

xo

-k

My First Bottle

The title of this blog sounds like a baby’s first bottle. Haha. Nope. My first bottle I decided to write about was a Malbec. For some reason Malbec always sounds Australian to me? Not sure why or where I got that in my head but this wine was not from Australia…it was from Argentina. Why did I think that all Malbec’s came from Australia. Where did I get that in my head? Hmmm…

You can see in the top right hand corner that the caterers wrote ‘singers’ on the bottle to know what dressing room to deliver it to. Classy. Anyway….a 2009 Dona Paula Esate…the “n” in Dona has a little squiggly line above it but I cannot figure out how to get that to appear with my keyboard…see below…

These were my observations when I opened it and had my first few sips. It wasn’t very thick…went down very lightly. The flavor was not overly fruity but it definitely had some sort of cherry flavor.

I wonder where the deep cherry components came from? Do cherries go in wine? Or is it all grapes? Is this a dumb question?  If it is all grapes how do they get the cherry flavor in there? By osmosis? I need to look into this further.

When it first hit my tongue it kind of made my face scrunch up…a little bitter and sharp and pointy. But as it was going down those things went away and it was smooth. Smooth like butter.

I really liked this wine. I will be curious to compare it to other Malbec’s but this one was a crisp, light, breezy wine. This is definitely a bottle where you could have a few glasses too many because it’s just that easy going down.

Me likey. I’d rate this bottle a strong 7.

-k

Wine Not?

Okay. Wine not?…That was maybe a little cheesy. My name is Kate. I am not a wine connoisseur or whatever other name fancy people call people who know lots about wine. That is not me. I’m just a blonde who likes the occasional glass of wine. Wine snob…no. Singer? Yes. I am 29, live in Nashville, TN & love music. I am in a little duo called jillandkate & I also tour as a backup singer with Kelly Clarkson.

I know nothing about wine. Well…that’s not true. I know very little about what a good wine is or what the difference is between a Cab, Merlot…heck, I barely know the difference between a red & a white bottle….but I do know that I like drinking it. But I haven’t exactly gotten a refined tongue for being able to know what I like, what I don’t like…what my favorite is. So, this is my little adventure of blogging about wine drinking. Sounds like a dream, right?

Again, this is not my profession and so please do not take anything I say to heart. Please don’t go marching into your local wine shop repeating anything I ramble on about in here…that will probably only get you laughed at. I will probably lead you astray on wine drinking. But if you’re like me and don’t know very much about wine and want to hear a non-expert opinion…read on! You can find me on any normal day in any part of the country on tour singing backup & that’s kinda what originally spurred my idea to blog about wine. Every show day there is a new bottle of red wine in my dressing room. I never pay attention to the name or what I’m drinking and so I thought I could blog about each bottle and maybe learn a few things along the way.

At the end of every blog entry I’ll give it a rating between 1 and 10. 10 being the best wine ever and 1 being a sorry excuse for a bottle.

Here goes nothing…

xo

-k