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Twist the top off this and celebrate a cork-free bargain.  Twisted Wines are a brand of wine that jumps out at you on the wine shelves.  The marketing guy in me loves this brand.  They have good packaging with a fun attitude, eye-popping shelf talkers and a well-designed website.  And the brand is not all marketing fluff, they are producing some decent wines at great prices too.

While I sound really excited about Twisted Zin, that’s really driven a lot by the price.  This is a great wine for only $6.99.  But it’s not going to be my top Zinfandel pick for under $20.

The nose on the Twisted Zin is cherry cola, raspberry and herbs.  It’s not really elegant, but it’s fun and enjoyable.  The palate is full of jammy red fruit and a touch of black pepper.  It’s not as spicy as a lot of other zinfandels and I would have liked a bit more kick, but it’s still quite enjoyable.  I was also surprised by the high alcohol level from a zin at this price (14.5%).

I gave this wine an 85.  Wine Enthusiast gave it an 84 back in November 2007 and labeled it a “Best Buy.”  I’d have to say that I agree.

Wine: Twisted Zin
Varietal: Zinfandel
Vintage: 2005
Alcohol: 14.5%
Rating: 85
Price Paid: $6.99

It’s time once again for Wine Blogging Wednesday and the host this month is Tim at Winecast.  For those stumbling upon this who don’t know what Wine Blogging Wednesday is, it’s a monthly event when wine bloggers from around the globe all write about a common topic.  The theme this month, for WBW #45, is Old World Riesling.

With Old World Riesling as the theme, you can check out about 50 other wine blogs today and discover a wide breadth of European Rieslings.  Some reviewers will feature sweet Rieslings and others, like me, will highlight the dry ones.  

Remember that syrupy-sweet stuff you were served the last time you had Riesling (the time when you declared that you don’t like Riesling because it’s too sweet), forget about that.  Dry Riesling is delightful and is typically dominated with mineral and citrus flavors.  Some of the German ones may also have a petroleum characteristic to them.

The Riesling I chose to review is Kuentz-Bas Tradition from the Alsace region on the eastern border of France.  This is a region well known for its white wines, Gewürztraminer and Riesling in particular.  Kuentz-Bas has been producing wines in this region since 1795, so I guess you could say they have a bit of experience.

Kuentz-Bas Tradition 2005

I am pleasantly surprised by the intensity of the nose of this wine.  It’s not overbearing, but it’s more intense than I expected.  Honeydew melon and floral notes are the dominant aromas, but there is also a bit of mineral smell like the wet rocks from a crisp, clean mountain stream.  That mineral aspect dominates the palate.  It is like pulling one of those rocks from the stream and sucking on it.  Picture one of those well-worn, rounded, granite-based rocks.  There is also a good amount of lime flavor mid-palate with a crisp acidity.  The finish brings a subtle pineapple flavor to the tongue.  It’s a long finish too—I can walk away from this for a few minutes and I’m still enjoying the aftertaste.

This is a great example of a dry, old world Riesling at a decent price, $14.99.  If you’re someone who has always avoided Riesling because you think it’s too sweet, I suggest you give this one a try.

Wine: Kuentz-Bas Tradition
Varietal: Riesling
Vintage: 2005
Alcohol: 12.5%
Rating: 89
Price Paid: $14.99

The Sierra Foothills designation of Renwood Zinfandel, also know as “red label,” is the entry-level Zinfandel from Renwood Winery.  They have some more pricey Zins available, but they are mostly out of the range for Cheap Wine Ratings.  The red label wines from Renwood are produced from their younger vines and are much simpler than their high-end wines, which are well known, award winning wines.  But this red label Zin was actually a decent wine for the price.

This is a fairly simple zinfandel, with cherry and pepper on the nose.  The palate is dominated by sour cherry with blackberry and tar underneath it. It’s well balanced and enjoyable, but it’s not extraordinary.  It’s not as jammy as a lot of other zins, so if you want less jam this may be a pick for you.

Wine: Renwood
Varietal: Zinfandel
Vintage: 2005
Alcohol: 13.5%
Rating: 85
Price Paid: $11.99

The next series we’re doing on Cheap Wine Ratings is California Zinfandel.  At times Zinfandel is one of my favorite varietals but sometimes it ends up just way too sweet and jammy.  Zinfandel is really a chameleon though, as its wine can have a variety of characteristics from jar-full-of-jam fruit, to spicy, to tannic, and the list goes on.  Style aside, we’re going to review a variety of California Zins to try to find the best picks under $20 no matter which style you prefer.  (Unless your style is White Zinfandel, you won’t find those reviews in this series.)

Zinfandel grapes are generally very high in sugar levels which enable them to produce high alcohol wines, some 15% and higher.  In the under $20 price range there are only a few that you’ll find at 15% alcohol and most of what we’ll feature is in the 14-14.5% range.  This is still a fairly high alcohol level which means these are mostly big and bold wines.

Another thing that you’ll notice about Zinfandel wines is that producers like to have a lot of fun with the names.  I guess the rhyme with “sin” is too much for marketing teams to resist.  You’ll find names like Cardinal Zin, 7 Deadly Zins, Twisted Zin, Sin Zin, and others.

You’ll also find a number of California Zinfandel producers who sell two-three labels of Zin at different price points.  We’ll be featuring a few posts where we review multiple Zin labels from the same producer.

The first review in this series features both fun names and multiple labels from one producer.  Alexander Valley Vineyards has a lot of fun with their Zinfandel and you’ll probably notice these ones on the shelves.  They sell two that are under $20 but we also decided to go a few dollars higher to see how their third-level Zin compares at $25.

I was pleased to find a definite improvement in quality at each higher price point. 

Temptation Zinfandel

Cherry cola and bramble nose with a hint of walnut.  Cherry, raspberry and tomato on the palate. A bit thin for a zinfandel.  The finish is quick and a touch bitter.  The yeast is very noticable in the finish of this one, which is a little weird and unpleasant.

Wine: Temptation
Varietal: Zinfandel
Vintage: 2005
Alcohol: 14.5%
Rating: 81
Price Paid: $12.99

Sin Zin

Moderately better than “Temptation,” but similar in flavor profile.  Cherry, vanilla, smoke and bramble on the nose.  Cherry, raspberry, cola and spice on the palate.  Definitely a bit more spicy than Temptation and a longer, more enjoyable finish.  This is a nice contrast to a lot of the jammy fruit Zins that you’ll find in this price range.  It’s a bit more complex and exciting.

Wine: Sin Zin
Varietal: Zinfandel
Vintage: 2005
Alcohol: 14.5%
Rating: 85
Price Paid: $16.99 

Redemption Zin

This is an elegant and exciting zinfandel.  The nose shows quite a bit of raspberry backed up by herbal and earthy aromas.  The palate is a nice spicy raspberry with a touch of cherry cola and walnut.  The finish is very long and spicy, but the spiciness isn’t as intense as the Sin Zin.  This is all around an excellent Zinfandel.  I just wish the price was a bit lower.

Wine: Redemption Zin
Varietal: Zinfandel
Vintage: 2005
Alcohol: 14.8%
Rating: 90
Price Paid: $24.99

I recently had the opportunity to try the full lineup of wines from a relatively new producer in South Eastern Australia named Friday Monkey.  These wines are fairly typical of what you would expect from Australian value wines.  They are very much “new world” wines in style in that they are simple and fruit-forward.

Occasionally I like to comment on the marketing approach that wine producers take, and this is one of those cases.  I like the name Friday Monkey, just for the unique factor.  I was also amused by the inclusion of a “critter” on the label.  Of course it is a monkey in this case, but I’ve noticed a trend with Australian wines of using critters on the labels.  Yellow Tail, Little Penguin, Alice White, Black Swan and others all use critters and bright colors on their labels.  Is the same design company coming up with all these logos?  I guess they have a good reason… critters sell wine!  In fact, one of my colleagues just said to me a couple weeks ago, “I’m a sucker for wine with critters on the label.”

Tasting-wise these aren’t extraordinary wines, but they are reasonably priced at $7.99-8.99.  They are quite comparable in quality to other Australian critter-labeled wines.  The one I enjoyed the most was the Cabernet Merlot blend, which was quite a quaffable wine.  Here are the notes on the full lineup.

Friday Monkey Chardonnay 

The nose is a rather tight, which seems to be the case with most of the Friday Monkey wines.  Although subtle, the aromas on the nose are pear, honey, apple and a bit of mineral/wet rock.  The palate is very sweet and fruity.  The fruit is mostly pear flavors, but there’s a bit of yellow delicious apple too.  The mineral that was on the nose is also found mid-palate.  There isn’t any oak, so although it’s not labeled as such this appears to be an unoaked chardonnay.  It is lacking acidity a bit, which makes it rather flabby—particularly on the finish.

Varietal: Chardonnay
Vintage: 2007
Alcohol: 14% 
Rating: 77
Retail Price: $7.99-8.99

Friday Monkey Merlot

Wow.  This Merlot has an intense, perfumey nose with loads of dried fruit and herbs.  Sage and dried cherry are the dominant aromas, complimented by some blackberry.  This is the one wine from Friday Monkey that doesn’t lack intensity on the nose.  At first I found the nose to be overbearing, but give it a few minutes and it’s not so aggressive.  The palate is enjoyable with strong dried cherry flavor accented with blackberry, spice and a touch of strawberry.  I would have liked a bit more tannin to give it a richer mouth feel, but the acidity is good.

Varietal: Merlot
Vintage: 2006
Alcohol: 14% 
Rating: 81
Retail Price: $7.99-8.99

Friday Monkey Cabernet Sauvignon

This wine has brick red color and bright clarity.  This isn’t as big and bold as a lot of other cabs, but it’s a decent medium-body Cabernet.  It has black pepper, plum and subtle strawberry aromas with a little bit of oak underneath it.  The palate is very blackberry.  The fruit is abundant on the palate.  As I said before, these are fruit-forward wines.  So you might say it’s a blackberry jam palate.  There aren’t really any other discernible flavors on the palate.  The tannins are smooth and enjoyable.  There is a bit of a pucker factor on the finish, which is quite long (the finish, not the pucker).

Varietal: Cabernet Sauvignon
Vintage: 2006
Alcohol: 14% 
Rating: 82
Retail Price: $7.99-8.99

Friday Monkey Cabernet Merlot

This is my favorite of the Friday Monkey wines.  It has good color and clarity.  There is a strong leather aroma on the nose.  It’s like cracking open a new wallet and taking a whiff.  There is also a bit of straw, cherry and a subtle bubblegum aroma.  And I do mean subtle, normally the bubblegum aroma would turn me off, but it’s not too bad here.  The palate is very much a new world, fruit-forward experience, but it’s not quite at the “fruit bomb” level.  In other words, it’s not too sweet.  There are clear blackberry and cherry flavors and soft tannins.  There’s not a ton of complexity , but it’s a very quaffable wine.

Varietal: Cabernet Merlot
Vintage: 2006
Alcohol: 14% 
Rating: 84
Retail Price: $7.99-8.99

Friday Monkey Shiraz

Leather, tar and raspberry jam make up the nose on this one.  Although those are all rather subtle as again the nose lacks intensity.  The palate is very jammy with nondescript berry flavors.  There’s also some black pepper and a bit of salami flavor.  Overall, there is a lack of complexity.  The tannins are dry.  There’s a bit of a metallic aftertaste on the finish, which turned me off a bit.  It’s subtle, but noticeable for at least the first couple sips.

Varietal: Shiraz
Vintage: 2007
Alcohol: 14% 
Rating: 81
Retail Price: $7.99-8.99

Say it with me: mon-tuh-pul-CHEE-an-no dah BROOT-zo. 

It’s one of my favorite Italian wines and not just because it’s fun to say.  It’s a very approachable Italian country wine that is often overlooked.  Yet it is very enjoyable and can have as much complexity as more popular varietals.  It’s much less acidic than many other Italian wines, such as Sangiovese or Nebbiolo, and it has soft tannins.

Montepulciano is the grape and Abruzzo is the region, which you’ll find 70 miles east of Rome and continuing to the Adriatic Sea.  To be clear, there is also a community in Italy named Montepulciano, but that is not the source of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo.

Old World Meets New World

One of the things that I really enjoyed about many of these wines is that they have a nice blend of old world and new world wine characteristics.  They have some of the earthiness and complexity you would expect from an old world wine with a fruit-forward palate that you would expect in new world wines.  At times I am a fan of both (old and new), so when I can’t decide which I want, this is the perfect choice.

Over the past few weeks I’ve reviewed several bottles of this delightful Italian wine and it’s time to summarize the results.

Top Picks

My top pick from this series is La Valentina from Fattoria La Valentina.  This wine showed outstanding complexity and was enjoyable all around.  At $13 it is reasonably priced.

My second choice is Masciarelli, which shouldn’t be a new name to fans of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo.  This is a popular choice for many, and for good reason.  It has great concentration, good complexity and is a bargain at $9.

Another pick that I’ll have to call the best deal is Farnese Vini - Farneto Valley.  This wine has smoke and cherry aromas on the nose and a berry-filled palate.  This is a great way to try Montepulciano d’Abruzzo for only $7.

Most of the wines I tasted ended up somewhere in the mid 80’s.  So there are several decent choices available.  Here’s the full list.

Rubiro Montepulciano d’Abruzzo is (from what I can tell) a second label from Villa Cervia where oenologist Rino Moretti has been producing wine since 1989.

This would be a good choice if you want a red wine that’s not too aggressive.  It’s approachable and soft in every way, making it easy to pair with a variety of foods. 

The nose is rather subtle but has aromas of plum, cherry and a wee bit of barnyard (not in a bad way).  The palate is very soft and a bit short of concentration.  It’s mostly just plum and a bit of earth.  The tannins are also soft, but prevalent enough to give a full mouth feel.  There is a hint of spice in this one too, but again it is very subtle.  When I first opened the bottle it had a touch of effervescence, but it quickly went away with decanting.

Overall this is a pretty good wine that is a bit softer than some of the others I’ve tried in this varietal.  It would pair nicely with a bowl of pasta, pizza, cheese or a number of other foods.  As I mentioned, this one is quite food-friendly.  I found it for $13.99 and it earned a score of 85.

Wine: Rubiro
Varietal: Montepulciano d’Abruzzo
Vintage: 2004
Alcohol: 13% 
Rating: 85
Price Paid: $13.99

I’ll keep this one relatively short as there’s not much to get excited about. This review adds fodder to my “there’s better places to shop for wine than Trader Joe’s” rant. Yep, it’s another wine from Trader Joe’s that rates less than 80.

The fruit is soft in this one. It has a little leather and currant on the nose, but it lacks intensity. If you’re looking for consistency with that lack of intensity you’re in luck as the palate also lacks concentration. What flavor is there is a bit of blackberry and currant. The tannins are soft and are probably the best aspect to this wine. In general this is also a bit off balance on the acidic side. Did I mention that it’s a very light wine?

The good news is that it was only $6.00. I may be dramatizing my distaste a bit only because I grow frustrated with all the people I meet who rant about Trader Joe’s as the place to get good cheap wine. In my experience, it’s not. This wine rated at a 79, so it’s not disgusting but you can find others that are much better without spending much more. Like Masciarelli, for example.

Wine: Villa Cerrina
Varietal: Montepulciano d’Abruzzo
Vintage: 2003
Alcohol: 12%
Rating: 79
Price Paid: $5.99

Azienda Agricola Masciarelli operates 13 estates across Abruzzo totaling about 300 hectares with lots of Montepulciano vines, plus other varietals such as Trebbiano, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Cococciola and one hectare of Falaghina.  They also have olive groves on many of their estates and are well known for their olive oil sold under the Cvetic name.

The estate was founded by Gianni Masciarelli in 1981 and they’ve established quite a presence in Abruzzo in less than 30 years.  With many wine producers in the area having vineyards that were passed down from one generation to the next, this is a relatively young producer.

I found the 2003 vintage on shelves in my area and I was a bit surprised that I wasn’t finding a more recent vintage but I was glad to give this one a shot.  This is another wine that is a nice marriage of old and new world styles.  It has a few characteristics that make it a bit dirty and interesting in an old world way, but enough fruit to appeal to fans of new world wines.  It has a slightly smokey and dusty nose with dark berries and leather.  There is very good concentration in the palate.  Cherries, blackberries and chocolate all have a strong presence. There is a lot of fruit, but the fruit is a touch young tasting—keeping this wine very dry.  It has a medium length finish with smooth tannis and a hint of chocolate.

I found this for $8.99 and it is an excellent wine for that price.  I gave it an 87.

Wine: Masciarelli
Varietal: Montepulciano d’Abruzzo
Vintage: 2003
Alcohol: 13% 
Rating: 87
Price Paid: $8.99

A new blog has surfaced within the past few weeks that is lampooning the wine blog community and I think it’s great.  Wine-ing 2.0 is like The Onion for wine blogs.  It pokes fun at wine bloggers with satirical articles which may or may not have a sliver of truth to them.

Some of my favorite posts are:

• Dr. Vino: He’s NOT a doctor and he doesn’t like wine
• American Wine Blog Awards 2008 Winners Announced — Nobody Who Didn’t Win Gives a Shit
• Does the Couple Behind Catavino Even Know Where Spain Is?

I’m not sure if this will have any appeal to readers who aren’t wine bloggers themselves, or at least avidly follow several wine blogs, but to me it’s awesome.  I absolutely love snarky humor.  I just wish I had thought of it first. 

But hey… why let that stop me from stealing the idea, or at least joining in the fun?  You’ll notice a new category in my navigation named, “Wine Satire.”  If you see a post in this category, watch out!  In fact, let’s start now:

Gary Vaynerchuk Hosts Wine Blogging Wednesday, But He Doesn’t Know What It Is

This past Wednesday, renowned wine vlogger Gary Vaynerchuk from Wine Library TV was the host for the 44th installment of Wine Blogging Wednesday, but in a faux pas moment he demonstrated that he has never really seen the event, nor does he know what it is.

In his own post for Wine Blogging Wednesday (WBW), Vaynerchuk kicked things off with a spiel about WBW and his “good friend Lenn.”  But in this spiel, Vaynerchuk instructed Mott, Vaynerchuk’s lackey, to “Link up the Wine Blogging Wednesday link.  Where you’ll be able to see all the other wine bloggers on the Internets talk about their cabernet franc experiences.”

At this moment a dull roar was heard throughout the wine blogging community as other wine bloggers said to themselves, “he doesn’t know how Wine Blogging Wednesday works!”  For those who don’t know, as the host of WBW, Vaynerchuk is actually responsible for providing the summary of “all the other wine bloggers on the Internet(s).”  The summary doesn’t exist on the WBW website.

Vaynerchuk continued, “…talk about their cabernet franc experiences from France, because that is what I brought to the table.”  Yes, it’s true.  Vaynerchuk was under the impression that “hosting” WBW involves nothing more than picking a varietal and calling yourself the host.

We spoke with Lenn Thompson, originator of WBW later that day who said, “if Gary thinks I’m going to write up the summary for this month, he can kiss my ass!  He’s the host and he needs to do his job!  And what’s up with him thinking he’s my friend?”

Tim Elliot, a WBW coordinator and author of Winecast commented, “I can’t believe Gary doesn’t know what a blog carnival is.  He is supposed to be ‘web saavy’ that’s why we invited him to host.  I should have known something was wrong when I heard him say ‘Internets.’ This is bad… really bad.”

In an attempt to save face the following day, Vaynerchuk asked bloggers to re-post their links and then delegated the WBW hosting dirty work to Mott.

When asked about the turn of events, Thompson angrily said, “I straightened his ass out!”