Decant Stop Tasting Wine Blog

This wine was quite good, without question. It had a light aroma – pleasant, a little rosy and smokey. A beautiful red color with the slightest hint of purple. It was just light enough to allow a really nice glow from a candle – this is a good romantic wine on several levels.

The flavor was fairly light, but very nice. Cranberry with a little black pepper, and maybe a dash of raspberry thrown in. The tannin balance was impressive. The pepper and cranberry followed through for some time in the aftertaste. A very interesting flavor. It was actually more complex than I can describe… like it contains flavors that we just don’t know how to describe. A definite recommend – you really should try this wine, just to experience it.

Rating: 90

Price: $10 (K&L Wines)

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The Color is a tiny bit more purple than a garnet.  Nice.

Initial aroma – wet dog/flea soap.  Yep, believe it or not, that was what we both smelled… mostly wet dog with a little bit of flea soap.  When we got past that we smelled small amounts of tobacco, leather, hay, cherries, and red currant; not necessarily in that order.

It tastes of black pepper and raspberry mostly, with hints of red currant, prunes, and was a little smokey.  Mouth feel was pretty nice… not too bold, but not too thin either. 

The finish was nutty, which I really liked, with a nice ripe tannin, and quite fruity – even a hint of apricot.  A little oaky/woody.  This is really where this wine stands apart.  The aftertaste was really enjoyable, and long lasting.  I found myself taking sips purely for the anticipation of the aftertaste.

We had some Gouda cheese with this wine and went extremely well.  This wine is a lot of bang for your buck.

Rating: 90

Price: $10 (K&L Wines)

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Hello all! Just wanted to drop in and add my very first note to all you wonderful people. I’m very excited about this blog, and would like to think those who drew me to it.

My first post is a very special wine I came across while running tastings at my alma mater USC. After a successful tasting I was given a beautiful bottle of this vintage from Joseph Drouin of the Bordeaux region in France, but this particular wine was born instead on US soil.

The coldish, damp climate and acidic soils in Oregon’s Willamette Valley gives very similar characteristics to its grapes that those in Bordeaux do. The plump, overtly boring Pinot grape gives way to the slightly shriveled, sweetened grape that makes the Pinot Noir special.

You’ll notice deep, mushy blackberry and coffee on the nose right away, but a little decanting does wonders for this relatively young wine, allowing the deep cassis and faint notes of ripe orange to open up towards a mellow finish of velvety tannins.

A word of advice, this wine is special (read: expensive…as all good Pinot Noir is) so save it for a special occasion or a special red drinker of yours. My wife and I shared ours over her birthday meal.

Buy now and drink it, but if you cellar it it will get even better.

Hooray! One down, many more bottles to go!

Rating: 91

Price: $50 (K&L Wines)

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I really enjoyed this wine. It was to me one of the better wines we’ve had thus far, especially for the money. It was purple in color, and fairly dark, but was also clear enough for candle light to penetrate (beautiful). The bouquet was excellent, to me, and Rika and I both agreed it had a floral aspect to it. Aside from the floral aspect, I couldn’t quite put my finger on what I was smelling, but it was kind of fruity and kind of spicy, maybe some vanilla. It had a very nice flavor, which was fairly fruity, but very well rounded with spice and tannins. The finish really had a nice evolution of flavor, probably the most interesting so far. It starts kind of fruity, moves through vanilla and then black licorice and finally lingers with spice and tannin. While Rika and I agreed on most things about this wine, she gave it an 88 and I gave it a 90. We agree that this wine will continue to get better with 3-5 years of age. We’ll take the average on this one, but consider it highly recommended by us.

Rating: 89

Price: $11 (on sale for $10 at K&L Wines)

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A marvelous wine. There isn’t the explosive fruity flavors of some of the other wines we’ve tried and liked, like the Malbec, nor is there the overly “old world” taste and mouth feel of the Bordeaux we’ve tried and liked… this one lies somewhere in between; a really good balance. The aroma is very pleasing too, and like the taste, it is well rounded. I’ll leave my review at that and let the pro’s do the rest.

Rating: 90

Price: $12 ($10 on sale at BevMo)

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A pretty darn good wine for the price.  Wine has is wrapped in a burlap sac.  From Chile.

It has a really nice color.  If you want a romantic candle light wine, this might be it.  It also might be a little too dark for that, but none-the-less, a beautiful color.  It is medium ruby with a slight orange tint.  Really nice.

Aroma is earthy, floral, a little fruity, but also a little chemical – a small amount of wet cardboard.  This is not the strong point of the wine, but certainly better than many we’ve tried.

The taste is quite interesting, and could even be the topic of conversation for a good hour.  There is a black pepper and cherries jubilee flavor that I’m becoming more and more fond of with every sip.  Also a mix of blueberry and raspberry.  There is such a good balance of fruit and tannins, I love it.  There is also a hint of almond and tobacco.

Rating:  87-88 (We couldn’t decide)

Price: $8 (BevMo)

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In short, this wine is quite good.  It is very deep purple in color – you have to get a LOT of light through it to see through it.  But it is not hazy at all.  Just don’t expect candle light to light up the rose in it.  Of the wines we’ve written about in this blog so far, this one has the aroma that is the nicest on the nose.  This despite the fact that it is 15% alcohol.  Which brings me to the flavor.  Typically a high alcohol wine tastes of alcohol and often ruins the taste, but not this wine.  The alcohol is barely noticeable.  What you get is a truly lovely tasting wine.  It is very complete and full bodied.  Black fruit, dark chocolate, a little pepper, nice, nice tannins.  Aftertaste continues the wine taste and is very pleasing.  At no point is there a hint of unpleasantness.

Rating:  90

Price:  $10  (K&L Wines)

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We found this wine to be pretty good.  It has a pretty nice aroma, aside from a powerful oaky smell, which we’re not particularly fond of.  The taste was pretty similar… very well rounded and nice, with exception of a bit too much oak, and a finished that was tasty, but ended up like having cotton mouth.  It wasn’t extreme and I don’t want to make it sound like we didn’t like this wine, we truly did.  Certainly worth the money we paid.  But we would prefer to buy other wines instead, in the future.

Rating:  88

Price:  $10  (BevMo)

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Quintessential Wines says, “The classic Malbec aromas of ripe plum and violets are evident in the nose, with hints of vanilla. The beauty of the Malbec in Argentina is its ability to combine a rich, weighty mouth feel with a soft silkiness normally associated with lighter wines. Elsa Malbec takes the promise of the nose through to the palate, with pleasing
fruit that mimics the aroma. The soft, supple palate leads to a lingering finish”, and I couldn’t agree more. 

We loved this wine.  Fruity, but not super sweet, like lesser fruity wines tend to be.

The wine was rated 90 by Wine News and 90 by Wilfred Wong.  I also agree with this assessment.

Rating: 90

Price: $9  (BevMo) $8 (K&L Wines)

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