When you think of great wine cultures your mind conjures up provinces of France, rugged struggling vines in Spain, fruit & nut Californians, enterprising Australians, and Carmenere-saving Chileans. Probably the last culture you would associate with viniculture are horn-helmeted raiders from the land of the midnight sun. No great wine has ever come out of Norway aboard a longship. Sure these barbarians named Sven and Ole would plunder a cask or two, but make it? Never.

I know that Washington State is one of those places where Norwegians settled upon emigrating to the USA, but what lunatic thought that melding that with the state’s wine production was a good idea? Somewhere in the Yakima Valley of Washington is a place called Outlook, and though I’ve never been there I’d have to say the Outlook is bleak if this is what comes from there. My dictionary describes the word “raucous” with the following synonyms: harsh, strident, screeching, piercing, shrill, grating, discordant, dissonant; noisy, loud, cacophonous. That pretty much sums up the drinking experience.

I paid $7.99 for this bottle, and that was a deep discount. I can’t imagine how cacophonous my reaction would be had I paid full retail!

The look on Mrs. Barbarian’s face upon her initial tasting of the wine could serve as a dictionary illustration for “grating” or “discordant.” Thankfully I had a funnel handy and the glass you see here went right back in the bottle after I confirmed her suspicions.

I initially thought about saving it for use in cooking, which is my usual response to a bad tasting wine. After further consideration I ended up pouring that $7.99 right down the sink.

I fell ill just after Christmas with a nasty head cold, which transformed into an even nastier case of Bronchitis, a malady I suffered with often in childhood. It hasn’t bothered me in decades but came back to haunt me severely for almost 3 weeks. I had forgotten how miserable it makes me feel. My Barbaric persona completely abandons me in times of illness, or perhaps it just becomes magnified, who knows. I stopped drinking wine (as I couldn’t smell anything anyway!) and took up with a collection of nice small-batch Bourbons I’ve collected through a good friend in Kentucky over the past several years. The whisky got me through the bad weeks, and now my sense of smell has returned. I’m still a tad hoarse from coughing for weeks, but I promise that wine reviews will begin again shortly. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

*(Reader is singular as I know my following is small.)

While dining at our favorite local bistro, I saw a Pinot on the wine list from New Zealand. Being a fearless barbarian I gave it a go. It was wonderful. Light, fruity, very different in character to a French, Oregon, or California Pinot Noir. It was so good I ordered a case.

This wine however, proved to me that not all New Zealand Pinot Noirs are created equal. My notes, stabbed into my Blackberry say: “Kiwi red pinot noir 2006 Nelson NZ $13.99 awful.”

Those words just don’t do it justice. This stuff tastes like a brown-eyed mullet. It is as if the Grape Cocky flogged some from a kiore in the tip and crushed it with his ute and tossed it in the bottle. Rough as guts mate. It is puckeroo. You’ll chunder.

This stuff is BAD. I can’t even blame it on the cork! (It features a screw top.)

If it were under ten bucks I’d probably poured it down the sink. But since it was Pinot, and a penny shy of $14, I saved it and last weekend used it to make Coq au Vin. It was certainly up to that task. So if you want to blow fourteen bucks on a cheap bird, by all means buy this wine. Otherwise, avoid it like the plague.

Unless of course you need a good prison quality meat marinade. Blech.

Until last night, I felt about Petite Sirah like Will Rogers about people: I never met a Petite Sirah I didn’t like. Will Rogers never met Dick Cheney, but I just drank the Petite equivalent. Ugh.

The first warning should have gone off when I saw this on the grocery shelf for $7. Hello?! That really is too good to be true. The winemaker labeled this a “2005 Reserve”. I’d like to reserve a spot for his or her head on the end of a pike. Bleagh.

As you can see by the photo, I’m trying to put it to some good use however.