![]() ![]() The typical flavor profile of California red blends embraces ripe blackberry, vanilla, black currant, licorice, and chocolate.Īpothic White alcohol content, 12.0% per the bottle. Zinfandel is also a key player in big, boisterous California red blends. As with the Bordeaux blends, this style tends to be fuller and more concentrated than the wines of the southern France region. The other popular California blend style encompasses a combination of Grenache and Syrah from the Rhône. ![]() While more fruit-forward, richer, and bolder than the French styles that inspire the Californian take, these wines are highly regarded and respected. The days are warm, and the nights are cool allowing the perfect ripening of grapes for this kind of blend. Napa Valley especially has ideal conditions for Bordeaux blend styles. The best California red bends follow these French styles but with greater depths and intensity owing to this states sunshine. A distinct style of red wine in California, these blends are often inspired by the blends from the appellations of Bordeaux and the mixes of the Rhône. But a bottle of modern Vouvray master Vincent Carême's fabulous, tingling, rich, apples-in-honey dry Chenin is a worthy alternative for a special occasion now or many years down the line.Try this Apothic Red Wine, good value and taste – Atlas Daily 574įirst of all, this state is so renowned for its red blends that they deserve a big mention of their own. Prices are to say the least eye-catching (as much as £550 for a bottle of 1945 Haut Lieu Demi-Sec). These wines are part of a special and very limited parcel of Huët wines dating back to the 1930s that Berry will be releasing soon. ![]() But tasting smart London merchant's Berry Bros & Rudd's collection of very old chenin blancs from top Vouvray producer Gaston Huët was pure intellectual and sensual pleasure: my favourite, the 1959 Vouvray Perlant Demi-Sec, was like walking into a deli full of apples and freshly ground coffee. Sometimes the experience is more academic than hedonistic: the wine is historically curious rather than objectively delicious. Vincent Carême Vouvray Sec, Loire, France 2011 (£17.95, Berry Bros & Rudd ) There's always something magical about drinking very old wine and the almost dizzying feeling of time-travel you get as you taste something shaped by the weather all those years ago. The Finest example is all vibrant strawberry the Santa Tresa Cerasuolo di Vittoria 2010 (£12, /wine) blend with nero d'avola is fragrant and fluent with the sweet-sour taste and acidity of cherries. There's a delicious nod, too, to Sicily's ongoing renaissance with a pair of luminous reds both of which use one of my favourite red grape varieties, frappato. It's great to see a big supermarket acknowledging the quality coming out of Slovenia with the brisk and pure new dry white Finest Slovenian Sauvignon Furmint 2012 blend (£7.99) – it stood out a mile among the raft me-too New World sauvignon blancs and would go down a "storm" with Nigel's fish soup. While I wish Tesco would send the likes of Apothic back whence they came (according to the press release that accompanied its launch in the UK, it has already "taken the US and Canada by storm"), there's quite a lot to enjoy among its recent new additions. Tesco Finest Frappato, Sicily, Italy 2012 (£7.99) Still, credit where it's due. That it's both dramatically overpriced and has been enthusiastically listed by three major supermarkets rather than something with a less lavish marketing budget that tastes like, well, wine, is, however, not funny at all. Trouble is, Apothic Red is such a grotesque and clumsy caricature of the stereotype of sweet, candy-like, oak-flavoured Californian wine, it actually made me laugh when I tasted it at a line-up of Tesco's range. All of which suggests I should at least tolerate Apothic Red, the latest sweet red outpouring from the vast Californian E&J Gallo vinous-industrial complex. When it comes to booze, too, a shot of Bailey's or Malibu can induce a certain sugary shudder of nostalgia for my teenage years. Apothic Red, California 2011 (£9.99, Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury's ) As someone who's been known to enjoy the odd can of coke and munch Haribo sweets by the handful in times of stress, I can see how industrially produced synthetic food and drink products have a certain appeal in the right place and time. ![]()
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