Good and bad wines

Well, it's been two weeks since I blogged on wines and for good reason. In the past two weeks I have managed to drink some pretty mediocre to bad wines and had nothing good to recommend. But then I got to thinking that maybe I should warn you about them. I did have one really good new wine, an Elk Cove Pinot Noir. So first the good:

Elk Cove Pinot Noir, 2006: Normally this is a $30.00 bottle but I got it on sale for $24.00 so it passes the under $25.00 test. Rich, ripe, plum and cherry flavors with a bit stronger alcohol taste initially. Very smooth palate grading to a subtle cherry aftertaste. As my wife said after tasting the two reds below, "You really can taste the difference between the good and the bad…and this one was very good, indeed!

The bad:

Rosenblum Cellars 2005 Mourvedre, San Francisco Bay. $11.00. It had a bouquet of violets, smoke, spice, and a bit of cherry, but the taste was strange. Slight graphite taste lingered on the palette. Not good.

Seghesio Pinot Grigio 2006. $18.00. Pinot Grigio is a good warm weather wine. It's usually light, crisp and refreshing. The Seghesio Winery makes some very good wines, notably their old vine zinfandel. This, however, was not one of their better wines. The bouquet was citris and lemon. But the wine was quite bitter initially. It was tough to get by the initial bitter taste. Believe it or not, dropping a couple of ice cubes muted the bitterness and it wasn't bad then. But it's sacrilege to put ice in a wine. Stick with their zinfandel.

That's all for now

Ciao!