South Carolina Wine Joe

I have had enough bad Pinot Grigio to last a lifetime.  Most, including some best sellers, were poor quality and far too sweet.  However, I recently attended a class on Italian wine and tasted an outstanding Pinot Grigio, so off I went to Costco to find a decent Pinot Grigio. Maso Canali Pinot Grigio comes from a 500 year old estate in Trentino in northern Italy.  The wine is a pale gold color and aromas of peach and floral burst from the glass.  This is a dry and acidic wine with beautiful flavors of peach, pineapple and pear.  The taste lingers long after drinking the wine.   If you have had bad experiences with sweet Pinot Grigio and have moved on to other grapes, this is an excellent wine for another try at Pinot Grigio.  Costco and Total Wine sell this for $14.  SC Wine Joe does not assign numerical ratings for white wines, 

Regular readers of this blog know that I love Willamette Valley Pinot Noir and the Pinot that I most often choose is Willamette Valley Vineyards Whole Cluster.  I believe the quality and flavor of this wine cannot be matched at this price point.  We have been enjoying the 2017 Whole Cluster for at least 18 months and have anticipated the release of the 2018 version.  I recently found 2018 Whole Cluster at my neighborhood wine store (Wine Xpress, Simpsonville SC) and grabbed a couple of bottles.  Just like the previous vintage, this is a delicious, juicy, fruit forward wine.  There are bright flavors of black cherry, blackberry, raspberry and a small touch of chocolate.  The flavors linger in the mouth for an extended period of time.  This is not a heavy duty wine and you can enjoy it with or without food but I especially like to pair it with salmon.  This is delicious and I anticipate many bottles of this in my future. Total Wine sells this for $19.99 and I can usually beat that pr

On my last post, I wrote about the values found in European wines available in the U.S. for under $15.   Chateau Forcas Dupre Listrac-Medoc, which I found at Costco for $12.99 is a good example.  It should be noted that this wine often sells for around $23 at other retailers, so Costco's price is extraordinary. Listrac-Medoc is an appelation in the Haut-Medoc district of Bordeaux.  Wines from this appelation are primarily Cabernet Sauvignon with lesser amounts of Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot or Malbec.  Listrac-Mecoc is less prestigious than some other Haut-Medoc communes and therefore the wines are less expensive.  2014 was a very good year for red wine in Bordeaux. I taste blackberry and sour cherry with some oak in this medium bodied wine.  This is a well made food wine.  We enjoyed this with grilled pork chops and it was a good pairing.  Although Wine Enthusiast rated the wine at 91 points, most other opinions are not that high.  I think it is a terrific value at Co

There has been a phenomena known as premiumization occurring in the wine industry for several years.  Basically, wine makers think that the consumer will think a wine is better if it costs more.  When I started this blog, I found a lot of values in wine costing between $10 and $15 but today I most often spend $15 to $24.  Further, many of the wines in the under $15 price are mass produced to appeal to a broad audience of uninformed customers.  Three conglomerates control 60% of the wines on supermarket shelves and they think that if they put a cute label on the bottle or show sophisticated, beautiful women drinking the wine in their advertisements, you will buy it.  No wonder wine consumption is falling in the U.S., especially among the younger generations. Some exceptions to the above described problem, are wines from certain parts of Europe where you can still find terrific whites under $12 and reds under $15.  However, the US government is trying to mess this up.  Last October, th

Illahe Vineyards and Winery is committed to making wine in the most natural way possible.  They are committed to responsible water management with no irrigation for mature plants.  Grapes are hand picked.  Mowing and transportation of grapes to the winery utilize horses rather than tractors.  No additives are used in the wines.  Their premium 1899 Pinot Noir is made without the use of electricity and transported to Portland by stage coach and canoes. Illahe has experimented with small lots of different grapes to see if they can be grown in their vineyard.  They planted one acre of Tempranillo but found it was very difficult to grow in the Willamette Valley.  Their solution has been to pick the grapes early and make a Tempranillo Rose'. The grapes are whole cluster pressed and barrel fermented. The wine is a pale pink color with aromas of strawberries.  To me, the flavors are primarily citrus.  The wine is very dry and has an alcohol content of 12%.  I enjoyed this wine and fou