True Earth Red
I was stalking through the wine section of the grocery store the other day, when I happened upon this red wine. Honestly what caught my eye was the presence of my favorite grape on the label: Petite Sirah. Given that I’d pillage your village for a mere sip of Petite Sirah I have developed a finely tuned peripheral vision that is able to discern the pattern of letters that say Pxxxxe Sxxxh from a distance of 32 light years away. This grocer is desperately trying to appear upscale, and has devoted a subsection (really just an end of the row) to “Organic Wines”… bleagh. From what I know about winemaking the best wines come from grapes that have been tortured to within an inch of their lives. If we could ship a few vines to Gitmo I’m sure a red worth writing home about would appear! I mentally envision Organic Farmers out having deep conversations about love and emotion to their grapevines to produce this stuff. Hell, I’d be out there menacing the little bastards: “Suffer you miserable grapes! Suffer or we’ll turn you into jelly and you’ll live for nothing but the indignity of a sandwich! With peanut butter!!” … all while brandishing a battle-axe at them.
Anyway, this little section of the grocer’s wine department is where I found my beloved Nuevomundo, so I always give it a glance. Sure enough my pattern recognition systems zeroed in on my favorite varietal like a smart bomb to an Iraqi ventilation shaft. I grabbed the bottle and noted the label:
TRUE EARTH Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot/Petite Sirah Mendocino
I flipped it over and noted the percentages: 52% Cab, 43% Merlot, 5%(!) Petit Sirah.
Damn.
But… like a fish on the hook, or a bird in the hand, here I had a red and it was relatively cheap. This grocer also gives an additional discount if you buy 4 bottles and I already had two, so I decided not to play catch and release with this one… into the basket it went.
Mrs. Barbarian and I drank this with dinner tonight and both of us remarked how good it was. I was ready for another bottle, but alas, we only had the one and the Missus was unwilling to dive into something else (she is so not uncivilized like her mate… sigh.)
You will note this red has no date associated with it. No vintage. I do not know exactly why that is in this case, but I suspect that this blend was a collection of leftovers… sort of like a good chili or stew.
I love a good chili or stew! At $12.99 this is rather high-priced leftovers but to be perfectly honest, it is pretty damn good chili. I’d serve this to a friend in a heartbeat. Tasty. Rich. Excellent grapes. Everything you should and could expect from a good, cheap red. Give it a try.
Of course it could also come in handy for another use in todays hectic society. You know that annoyingly yuppie couple? C’mon… we all know them… the ones who shop at Whole Foods and send their kid to French language day-care? Yeah, I want to decapitate them too, but hey… what can you do? Next time you have to endure a party at their house bring a bottle of this one along. That way they can appreciate all this “organically grown” crap while you can enjoy a reasonable red. If you drink enough of it you’ll lose that urge to decapitate… leave the axe at home though.
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