Wolf Blass Red label Cab Merlot 2005.
This wine is one of many under $8 that I’m drinking at the moment. The reason for the “affordable” price tag is that I can only buy wines that fit a niche, and as I have plenty of more expensive “special” wines, the only niche that needs filling is the everyday drinking wine (Read: Kate won’t allow me to stockpile like I usually do, but I’ve found a loophole in her argument!).
This wine is nice and solid, not wishy-washy as you would normally come to expect from mass produced cheaper wine. It has a nice plum taste with berries (although I can’t taste the berries). The red label range is the second cheapest from Wolf Blass (the cheapest being the Eaglehawk, then red, then yellow, gold, grey, black and platinum). I find it very affordable at $7.50, and from memory the Cab Merlot was nicer than the Cab Shiraz. It’s a sure fire thing if you need to buy something from the affordable shelf.
FYI if you are in BC, BC liquor has red label wines for $15.50. I wouldn’t bother for this money as they also have the yellow labels for $17. The yellow labels are single verities from SE Australia and are a far superior wine to the reds. They also have the Eaglehawk range for about $13. I’m picking up some tomorrow night (for $6.60 on special) so I’ll let you know what I think!As always enjoy in moderation!!
Is appointment the opposite of disappointment?
Those of you who know me (not meaning to get philosophical) know that I tend to be a wine snob (I can hear Dan saying “and a coffee snob, and a tea snob, and a ….”)
HOWEVER, as I’m winding up my cellar, I’ve started buying table wines to drink now - oh the horror!! I have therefore started tasting Aussie wines below $10. I think our market for wines under $10 is very impressive. I’ve heard from Julian (the partner of a co-worker) that he predicts that due to the drought our lower end market will not be as affordable in the coming years. Julian is using this as an excuse to justify a world-war-three like buy-up. Good for him! I on the other hand am trying to decrease the size of my cellar in the off chance that someone from a foreign country will employ me.
Enough of that! Back to the wine! (more…)
One word answers this question. No.
BUT both Dave and James had to try it.
I asked Kate what other categories I should have and we managed to come up with “wine”.
I agreed, thinking that I could now drink more wines for “research” purposes. Can’t argue with that eh?
So the idea of this category is to review wines - as quick as I can drink em! Hopefully this will be helpful for those of you who want to buy Australian wines, but don’t want to buy that cheap crap that we make/export (yellow tail ring a bell??). In stead, I hope to review good wine, cheap and expensive!
Tonights drop was Rouge Homme 2004 Linestone Coast Cabernet Merlot.
Nice and smooth. I usually find that Cab/Merlots are easy drinking though, so it’s not particularly surprising! This bottle will go well with pretty much anything with a reasonable strong flavor. It says it’s spent time in American and French Oak - which screams to me “made cheap” - we didn’t have enough of either so we mixed it! But people who know say that this sort of mixing brings out a variety of flavors… you make the decision!
For $9.50 it’s a good everyday drinker. It’s also under a screw cap so you can take it anywhere.
Enjoy!
(Sorry Chris, can’t find it in the UK - says it’s not available)