Tasting- Apothic Dark

Picture of Apothic Dark

Name: Apothic Dark

Variety: Red Blend (doesn't say what grapes)

Region: Modesto, California

Country: United States

Year: 2016

Price: $9.98

Wine Critic Review: "Deep, saturated color and chocolate-covered cherry flavor make this wine a treat to drink, but don't expect a traditional dry dinner wine. It's turbocharged with sweetness and has a boisterous but agreeable personality." JIM GORDON

My Review: The color is incredibly rich and dark, such a dark purple red that it is almost black. As I let it breathe and swirl it in the glass, I am definitely picking up on some cherry notes. Possibly some blueberry as well. Maybe because I let it breathe, this one is smoother and more approachabel to me than the Apothic Red. I'm now picking up on some notes of possibly coffee, maybe a bit dark chocolate. Still a bit bitter, but not as tannic to me as Apothic Red. 

With Food: Since it claims to have hints of chocolate in it, I decided to try it with a bit of milk chocolate. I began to pick up on the hints of bitter dark chocolate as I drank. Overall I like this one better than the Apothic Red, it's smoother, less tannic, and to me more enjoyable. 

Tasting- Apothic Red

Picture of the Bottle

Name: Apothic Red

Variety: Red Blend of Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, and Merlot

Region: California

Country: United States of America

Year: 2017

Price: $9.98

Critic Review:  From Reverse Wine Snob: "The 2009 Apothic Red Winemaker’s Blend begins with aromas of plum and blackberry. Actually not just blackberry but really just a whole lot of berry flavor. What we have here is a certified “fruit bomb” and normally in this situation the fruit just overwhelms everything else, for better or for worse. That is decidedly not the case here; however, as this wine also exhibits many other interesting flavors. There are aromas of vanilla, spice, and maple. The wine tastes of juicy mixed berries for sure, but also cherry cola, brown sugar and then a little spice that gives way to a finish of lingering chocolate and maple syrup. A very intriguing wine that will take you through quite a trip of flavors. I also couldn’t help thinking this could pair really nicely with a bbq pizza. Cheers! "

My Review: Very dark red wine, almost black. Pretty tannic, left a bitter and burning feeling in the mouth. Got hints of dark fruits like maybe a dark cherry. Left a dry-mouth feel afterwords. 

With Food: Decided to try it with some pepperoni pizza spiced with Italian seasoning and garlic powder. After taking a bite and combining it with the wine, the feel of the wine changed slightly. It was a bit smoother, like the fats of the cheese and things were helping to cut through some of the tannins. Definitely still getting those darker fruits, and maybe a hint of vanilla? Hard to be sure, mostly I get the tannic component. Felt like a very dry wine to me. Didn't particularly care for it. 

Winery Visit: Canadian River Winery

 Canadian River Winery

On Saturday, September 21st, several classmates and I went to Canadian River Winery and got a tour of their facility. It was really cool. We arrived a little before the tour (which happened at 2 p.m., so we were allowed to taste the wines for a bit before. 

Me and Other Members of the Geography of Wine Class

The first wine that I tried was their Merlot. It was a big, jammy, tannic, sweeter wine with hints of blackberry that left a bitter finish in the mouth. 

The Merlot. Loved their glassware.

As I was sipping the wine, we got called to do the tour. We were given a short slideshow about the process of making the wines, complete with the song "Red, Red Wine". The man giving us a tour described the process that they use to make the wines. They prune in February, and they freeze the grapes overnight.  We were then shown into the facility where the grapes are crushed and stored to ferment. We learned that the white wines are stored typically in stainless steel, while the reds (such as Merlot), ferment in stainless steel and are then stored in oak barrels for two years. After we received a tour of the facility, we were shown the vines just outside. We were even allowed to eat a French-American hybrid grape, Seyval Blanc I believe, on the vine! It was sweet and juicy, and the grapes are smaller than table grapes.

Seyval Blanc Grape

Some of the vines at the winery.

They grow different kinds of grapes there, including Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Reisling, and Merlot. 

After we toured, we were allowed to continue our tasting. Knowing that I had to drive back, and that we were being given healthy measures of the wine, I decided to try one more wine, the Chocolate Drop. 

The Chocolate Drop immediately smelled of chocolate. It had notes of chocolate and was warm and buttery, with potential cherry and toffee/butterscotch-y notes. It was light and very smooth, with a silky finish. It's a dessert wine made from red wine and then flavored with chocolate! I enjoyed it the more that I drank it, and eventually decided to buy a bottle to bring home. Overall it was an amazing experience to learn more about the process of wine making in an actual winery. I'll cherish the memories forever and I hope to visit more wineries soon!

Chocolate Drop

Me with my new bottle of wine.

Tasting- Barefoot Moscato

Name: Barefoot Moscato
Variety: Muscat
Region: Modesto, California
Country: United States
Year: Unknown
Price: $5.48
Winery Review: Barefoot wine: Why it’s so popular
by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On 29 Sep 2016

Barefoot wine
Barefoot has made wine as easy as it’s going to get; who else can say that?
Barefoot wine will soon be the best-selling brand in the U.S. – as it has been the most popular wine on the blog for the past three years – for three reasons. First, it’s cheap, usually no more than $8. In an age where wine that costs twice as much isn’t appreciably better, that’s a huge advantage. Second, thanks to owner E&J Gallo’s billions of dollars worth of marketing muscle, it’s available throughout the country and especially in the newly crucial grocery store market.

Third, and most important, Barefoot gives consumers what they think they’re supposed to drink. This doesn’t have as much to do with the Gallo house style – smooth, soft, and fruity – as it does with what the wine business has preached to U.S. consumers since the 1970s. That message: The best wines are varietal, and you should only drink wine that says cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay, merlot, and the like on the label. The rest of it is too confusing and too foreign and too difficult to bother with.

Barefoot has embraced the varietal message with brilliance. Any wine drinker, regardless of knowledge, can go to the grocery store and buy a bottle of technically correct, pleasant tasting Barefoot chardonnay or merlot or pinot grigio or moscato without any trouble at all. It has made wine as easy as it’s going to get; who else can say that?

Even the brand’s name and its continuing use of cork, which I’ve never understood, works for it. Barefoot is a stupid name for a wine – until you realize that most of us can’t remember wine names. But we can remember the wine with the foot on the label. And of course corks, since they’re part of the varietal message that we’ve been hearing for 40 years. The best wine uses corks in the same way that the best wine says cabernet sauvignon on the label. That neither is necessarily true is irrelevant, since we’ve heard the message so long we accept it as truth.

That discerning wine drinkers think Barefoot is too smooth, too soft, and too fruity misses the point. As reader Neidin McCullough wrote on the six-year-old Barefoot post that remains the blog’s best-ever read entry: “It tastes nice. End of story. Can’t be bothered with pretentious wine snobbery.”

Frankly, I can’t argue with Neiden. My colleagues in the Winestream Media have never understood the ordinary wine drinker, and their refusal to do so is one reason why more people don’t drink wine. Why do we mock Barefoot drinkers instead of showing them how much more fun wine can be if they’re willing to try something else?

My Review: The first thing I noticed was the slight fizz that came as I poured the wine. As I swished it around in my mouth and tried to full taste it, I definitely got notes of fruit. I would say the strongest flavor I got was perhaps peach, if I had to pin it down. I really enjoyed it, it was light and smooth. I then decided to try it with a piece of pinapple, since it suggested to pair with fruit. I noticed a small difference, the wine seemed to be a bit sweeter, fruitier, it really made it nice and enjoyable.  Overall I enjoyed the wine and would probably drink it again!

First Entry- My Experience With Wine So Far

    Hello everyone, my name is Jackie Austin, and I'm a student at the University of Oklahoma. I want to start off by saying welcome to my wine tasting blog! I'm creating this blog for a course I'm taking this semester and I'm really excited to learn more about wine so that I can be confident when ordering and purchasing this lovely beverage. I think this course will be very beneficial for me as I leave college and transition into working full-time.

     I wanted to start off this blog post by talking about my experience with wine up until now. So, I have not had a lot of experience drinking wine.With the drinking age in the United States being 21, and the fact that I didn't turn 21 until last year, I haven't been able to purchase alcohol for very long. I have tasted wine before however, usually in the context of relaxing with my family after a meal. I've only tried wine probably around a dozen times or so.

     I haven't found a wine that I really enjoy yet, but I'm hoping throughout this course I will be able to find some wines that I enjoy. I've tried mostly dessert wines, since that is what my mother enjoys and that's what we usually have in the house. These were typically cheaper dessert wines, such as Moscato. With stronger alcohols (including wine) now being allowed into grocery stores here in Oklahoma, perhaps it will be even easier for me to discover wines that I like without breaking the bank.

     In this course I hope to learn how to properly drink and taste wine, figure out the kinds of wine that I enjoy, and I hope to be able to confidently order and purchase wine wherever I go. I'm also hoping to learn how to pair wines with food so that I can enjoy a lovely meal with wine. I'm excited to learn what this course has to teach me and I hope to share what I learn with people here!