Everyone makes mistakes and this was one. Unfortunately my 'knowledge and expertise' didn't protect me from buying this Australian Lambrusco-esque monstrosity. My ongoing wine adventurer quest often sees me reaching for the more esoteric reaches of the wine shelf and I like Dolcetto, the sweet little grape of Piedmont in Northern Italy, which usually makes a wine similar in body and tannin to New World Pinot Noir. I have had it on my wine list and had no qualms in recommending the Italian version.
This is not like that.
It smells like raspberry jam and tastes like it. Or more precisely like very sweet, iced raspberry tea (iced as the label recommends chilling so I'm 'drinking' it cold, and tea as there is a little fuzzy 'tannin' peaking through). If I was being kind I say it bears a passing resemblance to the varietal flavours of Shiraz, but I don't think I need to be kind and despite only clocking in at 10% this still manages to taste alcohol heavy.
I'm a bit horrified that this gets to be regarded as wine. A quick (post purchase) check of the Brown Brothers website reveals that they are quite open about the "Grandma's lolly jar" like flavours and the 76g/L residual sugar. What, if anything, this has to do with Dolcetto is not so apparent. A 1 (begrudging) sip wine.
Actually I take that back. A little more investigation has revealed that the residual sugar for the 2005 vintage of this wine was revealed but the details for the 2007 vintage only talk of stopping ferment to retain "a little natural sweetness". If this doesn't have a huge dollop of sugar thrown at it well then I really am a monkey's uncle.
1 comment:
Eew, Sarah. I am not a wine buff, but if I were there I would have wrenched the bottle from your hands before you got to the counter. For a while it was doing the supermarket tasting rounds. It is one of the reasons I no longer taste at the supermarket - no spittoon; no way out but to swallow.
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