Outside the Beltway

WINE BLOGGING

James Joyner · Thursday, January 1, 2004 · 7 comments

Apparently, blogging about wine is all the rage in the blogosphere. Rather than risk getting left behind, OTB is getting aboard this trend before it’s too late. Unfortunately, I really don’t know anything about wine, other than it’s made from rotten grapes and can give you a buzz if consumed in excess. But, as regular OTB readers can attest, having little or no knowledge about a subject has never stopped me before.

My criteria:

• Only fancy-schmancy wines will be reviewed. By “fancy-schmancy,” I mean not only that the wine comes encased in glass rather than a plastic bladder surrounded by a cardboard box but that the top doesn’t screw off, instead requiring removal of a cork.
• The wine will not have cost more than $10 for a standard .750 liter bottle. More likely, it will have cost under $7.
• The wine will never have been featured on an episode of Sanford & Son.
• I will have purchased and consumed the wine in question quite recently. Indeed, I’ll likely be doing so during the review.

I’ll rate wines conforming to those rigorous standards on a 5-point scale:

1- I’d rather be in a pine box on a slow train to Georgia than drink this ever again.

2-The wine equivalent of BlogSpot.

3-Something I’d drink any day–but I wouldn’t shoot a man in Reno just for another bottle.

4-Dang, this is good! I might be willing to pay $11 a bottle for this.

5-Better than an InstaLanche.

Also, to the extent wine reviewing is a matter of personal taste rather than scientific training, I tend not to enjoy particularly dry wines, so keep that in mind.

The first entrant:

Robert’s Rock Shiraz/Malbec (South Africa, Western Cape) 2001

The first South African wine I can recall purchasing and the first Malbec, so I don’t have a baseline against which to judge this aside from other Shiraz and Shiraz blends I’ve had (mostly Australian–Yellow Tail and Alice White, most notably).

Rating: 3.5 Certainly something I’ll buy again in the future. Less dry than a typical Shiraz and with a distinctive spicy flavor.

For those who prefer technical information, the following is from the vintner’s web site,

VINIFICATION:
Grapes selected from the Stellenbosch and Paarl regions. The must was fermented on the skins until dry. After malolactic fermentation, the wine was matured in oak for 8 months before it was blended, fined, stabilised and bottled.

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION:
Medium bodied wine that shows good colour. Exciting aroma profile shows cherry and raspberry flavours with undertones of sweet smoky spices. The wine portrays good fruit and juicy flavours on the palate with a sweet soft finish.

SERVING SUGGESTION:
Serve with barbecued chicken, moussaka, cottage pie, pasta and country pates.

I’ve never had moussaka or cottage pie in my life, but will give this one a go next time I have barbecued chicken or pasta.

Wine-gourmet.com had this review of the 1999: “A great, medium bodied red with polished flavors of sweet plum and vanilla and a touch of white pepper on the finish. Drink now. Definitely a good house red that won’t break the budget!”

What more could one ask for?