2006 Luigi Bosca Malbec Reserva

You know, I grabbed this fairly recently, but have no idea where or for how much. Trader Joe's? Maybe? It couldn't have been more than $12 or so....it may have been far less in fact.

A mentholy mediciney nose.

Big eucalyptus on the palate – like really big, huge, inching very close to unpleasantness. Even with plenty of airtime, this is still a difficult wine. There is some fruit, mostly strawberry, but it's all funky and green – mint, olives,

The finish is minty with more medicine qualities.

Well, if you like a lot of medicine qualities, then sure. Otherwise, I can't recommend it.

Wine: 4.5
Value: Nah

2004 Flourish Malbec Mendoza

This is the last of our Flourish bottles - a low cost, organic line distributed by Albertson's grocery stores.

First day:
Cherry, earth, and oak on the nose.

Quite a bit of menthol on this one – oak and cherry, but the eucalyptus is quite potent.

More eucalyptus on the finish. I suppose this one is good if you care for a lot of menthol in your wine.

Second day:
Chocolate and cherry on the nose.

The menthol is still present but far more sedate. More chocolate, plum, cherry, and a bit of oak.

Cedar and menthol on the finish.

A simple wine but far far better on day two. I'd advise giving this several hours of airtime before consuming. I paid about $5 when this was on sale, but regular price is closer to $11. A solid value at $5, and a borderline acceptable one when closer to $10.

2005 Terrazas de Los Andes Cabernet Sauvignon

This has been in the wine fridge for almost a year – it's been a bottle I keep passing up and figured now is the time. This bottle goes for under $10 and gets some solid ratings.

Day One:
Licorice, oak and perhaps some fig on the nose.

Interesting – cassis, some pruney notes, oak, spice, some dried cherry, and a bit of licorice. Not much tannin and somewhat low acid make the overripe fruit stick out a bit more than I'd prefer.

Spicy cinnamon, dried cherry, and oak linger for some time on the finish.

Day Two:
The nose has faded – while I get cedar, anise, and prune – it's substantially weaker than yesterday.

Today the tannins strike me as a bit more pronounced making this somewhat better balanced. Cassis, cinnamon, oak, and cherry on the palate.

Dried cherry comes through on the finish as well as some oak notes.

This is definitely an interesting bottle – and at the single digit price it's certainly one I'd recommend.

N/V Finca La Linda Extra Brut Sparkling Chardonnay/Semillon

I've heard of Extra Brut sparkling wine, but don't recall ever seeing one in a shop. I found this sparkling wine from Argentina while looking around a boutique wine shop and it cost me about $14.

The nose on this has the strongest scent of white bread that I've ever smelled. I also get something I can only describe as chemically.

A strange palate – at first I thought “this strikes me as sweet” but the more I drink it I think I'm being fooled by some fruit flavors – this makes your mouth pucker somewhat. Citrus mainly – I'm thinking white grapefruit and severely unripe pineapple.

Grapefruit zest on the finish.

For academic purposes, I suppose I'm enjoying the bottle. From the pure enjoyment side of things - this is just not working for me.

2004 Flourish Cabernet Sauvignon

I was at the local Albertson's owned grocery store and saw this line of wine – all organically grown from various parts of the world. I figured it was worth a shot because they had a sale – three bottles for $15 – regular price $11.99 each. While I doubt it's ever not on sale, I figured that's a severe enough discount to warrant grabbing a few.

Cherry and funk on the nose.

Cherry, strawberry, a bit of sweetness, and extremely mild tannin.

Strawberry – dare I saw of the Twizzler type – on the finish.

For $5 – why not? For $12 - I wouldn't have been happy. I suppose it works, it's on par with Yellow Tail – acceptable and perfectly good with simple fare like pizza or burgers.

2004 Finca Flichman Paisagie de Tupungato

This blend from Argentina has Cabernet Sauvingnon, Malbec, and Merlot and ran us around $16.

A smokey nose with a bit cherry.

Cherry and lots of blueberry on the palate with plenty of smoke as well. Lots of fruit and medium tannins–nicely balanced. Fran thinks this tastes cheap...I tend to disagree as there’s a fair amount of complexity you wouldn’t get in a $7 range wine.

The finish brings out some smooth oak.

It’s a decent bottle, perhaps not for over $15 but I can’t really say anything bad about it.

2004 El Felino Malbec

I figured since we dumped a Malbec we should open another of the same varietal. We tried this one at a tasting a few months back and thoroughly enjoyed it. This one set us back $16.

The nose is powerful with pine and herbal notes.

The palate has some strong blueberry–not the large grape sized ones, the tiny ones that just assault your palate when you eat them. I’m also getting some cherry and a bit of chocolate as well. Since the nose had so much wood I was expecting more on the palate, but it’s far in the background. Nice, chewy tannins on this heavier medium bodied Malbec.

I felt my first glass had strong anise on the finish, almost like you just finished a glass of absinthe....as it opens, I get far more chocolate.

An excellent wine and one I’d recommend without hesitation.

2006 Argenta Malbec

This brings us to the end of our $4 Trader Joe's selections. I let this one sit for two hours before making these notes.

The nose is a bit flat with nothing more than alcohol.

The palate has a very unpleasant glycerin mouthfeel. It's a strange wine, everything is muted....there's some fruit and oak but I can't really put my finger on much. It’s jammy, there’s no acid, this is below Yellow Tail in terms of quality.

The finish has no flavor but more of that strange coating.

With the very strange feel of this wine, I decided to dump a glass, and rinse it in hot water, dry it thoroughly, swirl some wine around in the glass, dump that, and retry it....I was hoping that perhaps some soap residue was affecting this one----sadly, no.

I was optimistic that we could do alright with an Argentinian wine at this price point, but no such luck. The cheap wine experiment was a failure...I’d like to say I’ll never be tempted to buy a bunch of dirt cheap wine from Trader Joe’s again but I’m sure it will happen again. Hopefully in the next round I’ll have better luck.

2005 Santa Julia Torrontes

Inching closer to the Wine Century Club: A Torrontes from Argentina. I don’t recall the price, but it was under $10 for sure.

This wine is, I believe the scientific term is, “meh.” No nose, no real body, nothing really there. It’s inoffensive, which some may argue, makes it offensive. The nose has some citrus, I suppose. It’s mild. Grapefruit and grapes on the palate. No finish to speak of.

So this is where you need to think about cost/value ratio. Even if I paid $8 for this, it’s still $8 for 750ml.

Let’s do the obnoxious comparison: If gas cost $8 per 750 ml, then one gallon of gas would be over $40. What’s the point of this comparison? Even cheap wine isn’t cheap, so you may as well pass up on the stuff that’s mediocre.

2004 Crios de Susana Balbo Syrah/Bonarda

I opened this bottle less than 48 hours ago because I needed some red wine for a recipe. So this has been open for almost two days before this wine was tasted for review.

Other than alcohol, all I get is pepper on the nose

Blackberry with spice, oak, and tobacco on the palate. Smooth tannins, well balanced oak and fruit. When I first opened the bottle I remember thinking it was somewhat harsh, but after a few days it definitely evened out and is quite good. At $10 this isn’t a bad deal.

2004 Colonia Las Libres Bonarda

The next few wines will feature strange varietals because I recently discovered something called "The Wine Century Club"....to join, you have to have tried at least 100 different grape varietals. Looking at the list, we've had 63 and being a tad bit OCD, getting at least 37 done by the end of the year is a serious goal I intend to meet.

The good news is that since these varietals are unpopular, they tend to be less expensive. The bad news is they're lack of popularity makes them somewhat difficult to come by.

Right now it's not too difficult hunting down strange varietals but I'm sure once we get to 95 we'll hit a huge brick wall.

So, here we are...a $6 Bonarda from Argentina made by Colonia Las Liebre.

After a few sips, this just tasted strange to me...so I picked up the bottle and there it was: "unoaked red wine." Most red wine we drink is aged in oak, so this tasted a little off, but now that makes sense. And now that I understand what it is, I can judge it accordingly rather than "this is odd."

On the nose, we both get strawberries...almost Twizzler like.

So here's the funny thing...I seem to taste a bit of oak in this one. Since it's a unique varietal, it's something I never had before and I just can't place my finger on it. It reminds me of Grenache in a way. Plenty of earth with some berries and some smoke. I taste what I'd generically call "black fruit" (think plums, black grapes). But even without oak it's still get some body to it.

An excellent wine for $6, if you're in the mood for a new varietal this may be worth your time.

2005 Terrazas de los Andes Malbec

I felt like something a bit different than the big named reds so I grabbed a Malbec from Argentina. I picked this up for $10.

Lots of oak on the nose and not much else. Mild tannins, plenty of earth, some spice, a little berry fruit, and a bit of tobacco on the palate. The finish lingers with raspberries. It's a smooth wine, it's light-medium bodied, and quite easy drinking.

This is pretty much the ideal wine to bring to a dinner party or serve to guests...the price is right, the wine is excellent, not too complex, and not too heavy so it can pair with almost anything. This wine is certainly case worthy....I look forward to moving into a larger place where we can stock up on wine like this.

NV Toso Brut Sparkling Wine

This bottle plus a 187ml liter bottle came in a pack for $8.99 at Cost Plus World Market. I picked it up figuring I could try the small bottle and if I really didn't like it offer up the full bottle to someone who enjoys sparkling wine. We enjoyed enough to hang onto the bottle for a few months and finally opened it tonight.

The interesting thing that I pickup immediately is that this is considered "Brut" and if I had to label it I'd call it Extra Dry if not Demi-Sec. Fran thinks it's too dry...which is a great point. I taste it as being too sweet, she tastes it as being too dry...who's right? Both of us, because it's our tastes. That's why wine tasting is so much fun. If you taste cranberry or something in a wine, no one can tell you (though they can try I suppose) that you're wrong...they may not taste it, but who cares, you do.

I taste some apples in this and I get some yeast as well. This is made with Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc, normally I hate Chardonnay but in sparkling wines I'm okay with it. This one, to me, tastes more like Chardonnay than many other sparklers we've had. Fran agrees. This very well could be a result of us paying a lot closer attention now that I'm specifically writing about what we try...but with the Chardonnay taste and a somewhat powerful yeast, I just don't like it. It's odd, we both enjoyed the small bottle no more than a couple months ago but we're not feeling it with the full bottle.

I don't foresee buying this one again.