Price: $10
Type: Syrah
Cork: Printed natural
Rating: 8
Purchased: Jungle Jim’s

This is a very solid little wine.

I was startled by the incredibly dark red color. The cork was stained almost black-red. From that point, it becomes a perpetual bridesmaid. It’s nose is good, but not the best. Ditto for it’s flavor and aftertaste. However, it’s very solidly good at all three, which is an exceptional trait in itself.

Alone, it’s a little on the sweet side. For new red drinkers (or slightly squirmy ones) this could be a good thing - especially because it’s very mild on the tongue instead of being drying or too tannic. That sweetness disappears with a nice pasta in red sauce and garlic bread. The wine also stood up incredibly well alongside spicy Mediterranean food..

I’ll buy this again. It may not be the most exceptional in any category, but for $10, it’s a solid, reliable wine.

Price: $7
Type: Red Blend
Cork: Printed beige artificial
Rating: 9
Purchased: Jungle Jim’s

Who says a cheap wine can’t be good?

This is the best sub-$10 bottle I’ve tried in a good long while. It’s not perfect, but it’s incredibly drinkable - moreover it’s something that I think both wine drinkers and those sip out of politeness can both enjoy. That’s pretty rare.

The fruity aroma is kind of weak. However, much like my curries, I like my wines to climb out of the glass and punch me in the nose. Once in your mouth, this is incredibly smooth. From the first sip to the last swallow, there’s no unpleasant dry bitterness.

It’s a little sweet for my tastes. This is why I think non-red drinkers might actually like it. It’s not so syrupy dry wine lovers will turn their nose at it and not so dry White Zin drinkers will think they’ve been poisoned. If you’re having people over for dinner or don’t know what to bring to a party, I’d recommend this and Little Red Truck as guaranteed crowd pleasers. I also think it’d make a great mixer for sangria. I’ll have to try that soon.

I’m really pleased with this one and will most certainly pick it up again.

Price: $17
Type: Red Zinfandel
Cork: Printed natural
Rating: 10
Purchased: Jungle Jim’s

Normally, I really try to stay under $14, but I have to admit the name piqued my curiosity. I resisted for over a year. Throwing a couple sub-$10 bottles into a mixed case helped me justify inching closer to $20.

I am deeply disappointed to confess this is a really delightful bottle of wine. I didn’t want it to be. My budget really won’t let me double the cost of my staple wines. Thus I am sad to say this will be limited to an occasional guilty pleasure.

If you like Red Zinfandels, this really is an excellent, highly drinkable iteration. In fact, if you’re trying to seduce someone over to Red Zins, this would be a great introductory bottle. It has a mild, fruity aroma, flows nicely over the tongue without being too tannic, starts slightly sweet and finishes remarkably smooth. I want another bottle already.

Price: $6
Type: Red Zinfandel
Cork: Stelvin Cap
Rating: 3
Purchased: Jungle Jim’s

It’s a bad sign when the first sniff of a wine smells spoiled.

Now I know what you’re thinking. For $6, I should be grateful it didn’t rip the lining off my intestines. But y’know what? Sometimes cheap wines are great mixers. I was looking for something a little on the sweet side that wouldn’t be a bad sangria mixer.

I should’ve stuck with Chateau de la Cube.

Here’s the thing I can’t get past. It tastes like rotten fruit. Yes, really. The smell is reminiscent of opening the bottom drawer of your fridge after coming home from a two week long vacation during which your electricity was shut off. It goes downhill from there. Sure, there’s a cloying sickly sweet flavor that has no place in a red wine. Yes, there’s the slightly greasy feel on the tongue, but those are minor complaints compared to the ghastly spoiled fruit flavor.

I’ll never buy another bottle, but I went ahead and gave this a 3 instead of a 1 because I know people who love sweet wines and use them as mixers. For $6, well, if the flavor of whatever you’re mixing it with is strong enough, you might be able to cover the spoiled flavor. Good luck with that.  

Price: $12
Type: Tempranillo
Cork: plain tan artificial
Rating: 1
Purchased: Party Mart

Please, I’ll confess! Make the pain stop. Go back to ripping my toenails out with rusty plyers. Anything to get the flavor of this abomination out of my mouth!

For a long time, I’ve assumed the worst Tempranillo would still be a mediocore wine. They’ve treated me so well. Opening this bottle was like stopping by a Hello Kitty loving friend’s house only to have her punch me in the face. I don’t understand. What did I do to deserve this? What could twist something normall so good into such a horror?

Normally, I’d chalk this kind of startlingly bad flavor up to cork rot, but this bottle was plugged with an artificial. Like it or not, I have to admit to myself there exists a startlingly bad tempranillo. From the first pour, the odor wafting up is reminiscent of rotting apples. The second it hit my tongue I was bitch slapped with ferocious bitterness. Surely I thought there’d be some kind of reward in the aftertaste. Stop thinking it’ll change! This wine only wants to hurt you. Bitter, bitter, painfully bitter. Under the bitterness was an unpleasant sour tang. Eww.

I thought it had to be my imagination. No wine could possibly be this bad. I vacuumed the air out of the bottle and masochistically tried another glass tonight. That’s it. I can’t keep doing this to myself. The rest of the bottle went straight down the sink.

I can’t imagine any redeeming qualities for this wine. Sometimes a wine will be too sweet for my taste. Then I can honestly say it’d be a good gift for the Wine Cooler/Boone’s Farm drinkers in your life. Sometimes a wine is too dry for my tastes. It makes a great gift for my dry wine loving pals. Sometimes, at least the bottle is cute. There is absolutely nothing to recommend this wine. It is beyond a doubt simply bad.

Price: $14
Type: Pinot Noir
Cork: printed tan artificial
Rating: 1
Purchased: Liquor Barn

This is what I get for being seduced by adorable bottles. To give them credit, you don’t get much cuter than a raised, embossed brass monkey hugging the whole bottle. I wanted this to be good. I’d make due with it being mediocre. Alas, I couldn’t handle more than two sips. It was like sugar saturated Robitussin cough syrup.

I know, I know. It’s German. They like their wines to taste like they belong in a kid’s juice box. I should’ve known better. It’s allegedly a Pinot Noir, though, and I generally like those. I hadn’t expected it to taste like alcoholic Capri Sun.

If you have a friend who only drinks Boone’s Farm and decorates the house with kitschy knick-knacks, this is a perfect gift.

Price: $11
Type: Red Zinfandel
Cork: adorably printed tan artificial
Rating: 8
Purchased: Liquor Barn

I want more of this.

I’ve had good luck with Red Zinfandels. Gnarly Head is in good company. The aroma doesn’t reach out of the bottle and grab you (or else I’d probably give this one a 10), but the flavor plays nicely with every part of the tongue. There’s a little zip on the tip, a nice body in the middle, and a pleasantly mellow aftertaste going down. Wines like this leave me impressed with grapes in general. How can the same fruit make so many different flavors? Perhaps I should be impressed with human ingenuity instead. We’ve been cultivating the same fruit for over 6000 years and still manage to coax it into new variations of flavor. Humans are awesome.

Old Vine Zin is a good choice for kicking back and having a couple glasses. It’s a solid drinking wine, the sort of thing that’ll hold up well alongside Italian food or chips and dips.  Don’t serve it with a curry. There are better wines for that (typically a Malbec or Tempranillo).

I’m looking forward to another bottle.

Price: $10
Type: Malbec
Cork: plain natural
Rating: 3
Purchased: Liquor Barn

It had to happen eventually. I’ve been pimping Malbec like I got a cut from every bottle sold. I had yet to find a bottle that did me wrong. Until now.

I was lulled into a false sense of security by the very nice color. It’s a rich, dark, promising red. When you lift the glass, though, it’s almost entirely odorless. That’s not a good sign. How can something so dark taste so watery? The flavor is almost entirely bitter, tannic aftertaste, as though you’re being punished for letting it get all the way down your throat.

I’ve tasted worse wines, but never a Malbec this bad. Maybe it’s just the year, but I can’t imagine any reason why I’ll give Maipe another try.

Price: $8
Type: Tempranillo
Cork: bright yellow artificial
Rating: 4
Purchased: Liquor Barn

 Normally, I melt over tempranillo’s. Not this one.

This wine is disappointing straight out of the bottle. It’s surprisingly unscented. The first taste is watery followed by a bland mouthfeel and a slightly bitter aftertaste. It’s the kind of thing I expect from the cheapest house wine at a chain restaurant.

I can’t say it’s actively bad. I didn’t need to wash the flavor away with something else. It’s just remarkably boring. That alone was a surprise. Don’t hold it against tempranillo’s, though. Nearly every other one I’ve had has been delightful.

I didn’t stop drinking wine, but a few years ago, I did stop banging my head against Blogger’s increasingly unresponsive software. I recently transferred all my blogs over to WordPress. In the process, I rediscovered this dusty old thing.

 I’ve had a lot of good wines in the last few years. It’s time to start writing them down again instead of falling back on old staples.