Wine Skeptic

I’m skeptical of wine reviewers that spit. I would say this wine is a perfect example of why. On the nose and first taste, its dynamite, with great fruit (2007) with the heavy black pepper note that really makes a great balance. Now, after that, its gone.. based on my previous post, perhaps you need to drink this with some meat or sausage or something to refresh the palette so you can find the unique elements again? Literally I wanted the black pepper back and didn’t find it again no matter what I tried. Don’t get me wrong, its perfectly palatable and lovely wine, recommended, but I wonder if tasters get excited by fleeting elements and don’t see that some elements don’t stick around for the whole glass.
In fairness: pop-n-pour is just as bad, some bad elements truly can ‘blow off’ if decanted for a while and that can effect reviewers as well. Still, its a tough job, what do I know?

It’s been an eye-opening holiday, due to the economic downturn, or really the need for lots of wine and little cash I decided to dip into the cellar. This included some pretty pricy and rare bottles, mainly red. Hitting the fan on Christmas Day was a bottle of Umathum St Laurent which was my first foray into +50 dollar bottles. Also going was the Keenan Merlot, Chateau Sansonnet 01 St. Emillion, and quite a few others. The verdict? Well.. meh… outside of the Sansonnet which I had before and helped me fall in love with Merlot based wines from Bordeau, they all were pretty good, but not memorable. In a way this was really surprising, since I was saving these bottles because of the price and ratings.
Perhaps the problem is building up expectations, or is it the raison d’être of this blog, which is it reasonable to think more expensive means better? After delving into wine big time, I’m still on the fence, I think some taste profiles seem to mesh with long aging, well picked and processed fruit, perfect weather, slow ripening, etc. Because of the age issue, white wine still seems to offer better quality for less price. Tannins are still a mystery, but aging does help – the Sansonnet bottle was smeared with settled tannins, which if we drank them may have tasted harsh.
What does this have to do with the Colosi? Well, its an exciting wine, around 14 bucks, and since it was featured on Vaynerchuk, I gave it a try. Normally I don’t agree with his ratings, which I will go into later, but when you see a bottle at the local shop he has raved about, what the hell? The real star of this show is big fruit with big acidity which is balanced by sweetness and bitterness of tannins. Simple, huh? Balance, and also the multi-tier, you think it will be too sweet, then it turns acidic, then bitter, drink, repeat. See, this wine thing isn’t so complicated after all?