Vino Keeno, The Grapevine for the Recreational Wino

Rosenblum Cellars 2003 RockPile Petite Sirah
$20.99

Wine label said:
… The wine shows dense blackberry, currant, ground peppercorn and hints of chocolate in the bouquet, with flavors of ripe blackberries, creamy currants, and hints of smoked bacon and licorice.

WebWino says:
My friend and I were browsing the wine racks trying to decide on a wine to accompany our takeout gnarly burgers. No, that isn’t their official name, but with cheese, onions, mushrooms and barbeque sauce, perhaps it should be. I offered up a Petit Sirah, under the mistaken belief that with the word Petit in the title, it’d be a mild go-with-everything wine. My friend agreed because he didn’t know any better.

I got my first hint of the bigness of the wine when I poured it in the decanter. The wine was one of the darkest inky purpliest wine’s I’ve ever seen. It went way beyond violet, taking a left at aubergine and straight onto dioxazine purple. (Shout out to all the painters!) This was the Barry White of red wines.

Second hint to the wine’s bigness was the flavor. It was far from mild, as it was a big, bold flavor. Not one to mix with gnarly burgers, mind you… but very tasty nonetheless.

I later found out that Petit Sirah is a very bold wine, made from a small grape. Smaller grape = higher flavor concentration. Less water to dilute the color and flavor. Makes perfect sense… also making Petit Sirah an oxymoron in my mind.

Regardless, if you are a fan of the large-flavored wine, this is a great one. However I have to issue a public consumption warning on this one. I had the darkest purple line on my lip after drinking this, and upon further inspection noticed a purple tongue and grayish teeth as well. Yes, this is one darn chewy wine. Yum!

Second Chance Review – Our Daily Red, 2005 California Red Wine
$7.99

WebWino says:
This is my second review for Our Daily Red. First time around was last June and I apparently had a bad bottle. Let’s just gloss over the fact that any wine reviewer worth their salt should be able to tell the difference between a good and a bad bottle of wine and move on to the review, shall we?

It took me a while, but I was finally able to locate another bottle of Our Daily Red and consume it with my same wine drinking partner who shared the first bottle with me. And wow, what a difference a good bottle of wine makes.

This time the wine was not vinegary, not murky, and not at all like yesterday’s leftover wine. Quite the opposite in fact. It was deep red in color and had a nice pleasing flavor. I would call this a universal red wine flavor. It was very smooth from the moment it was opened, and we both agreed it was extremely tasty.

Interestingly, last time I was eager to blame the bad wine on the fact it was organic. I had read a lot about how rotten organic wines were and was happy to include this one in the bunch. Again, I was quite wrong. There was nothing that stood out with this wine that screamed “this is different than every other wine you’ve had in the past.” Except for the fact that it was really quite good.

Falcor 2002 Chardonnay
$35

Wine label said:
For this lavisvishly and complex Chardonnay we selected on the quality proof from Gennys Vineyard in the Carneros District of the Napa Valley.

Vinophoto says:
Winemaker Ray Coursen has produced another winner. A straw color, aroma of butterscotch and tangerines, ripe fruit flavors and seductively toasty oak. It’s done in Burgundian-style.

WebWino says:
I have seen this wine online for as low as $27, so I bet you can find a deal on it. And welcome aboard, Vinophoto! We’ll save a bottle or eight for ya for after the surgery!