Chateau Fantin 2005 --- Bordeaux

I opened this bottle not exactly sure what I would get. Of course, this wine, too, is part of my "2009 Taste the Financial Meltdown" series of posts, so perhaps, I should not expect too much. Given that wine prices in Westchester County are seriously inflates --- selling $8 wines at $12-$14 --- we seem to have a pretty low likelihood of good semi-random picks.

This wine was of such poor finish that I seriously questioned my choice of purchasing a 12 bottle course in cheap wines. Maybe we should all pretend we live in better times and spend a little more. Fortunately, there are some bottles in the case that hold a little more promise. So I will take this treatment to its bitter end.

Apropos "bitter end" this actually captures the essence of this wine quite well. If it were not red, cost over $10, and lacked that ever so slight hint of a fruity bouquet, I would have thought I was drinking specialty beer. Maybe I should have done that.

The detailed specs of this wine are that it tastes rough and unfinished as soon as it hits the tongue. At over 13% alcohol there should have been some discretion on the vinter's end to stop the fermentation a tad earlier to preserve some of the sugars that could have somewhat taken the edge of the first acidic taste. Yes this wine is very dry. It was so dry that my wife started sneezing and coughing every time she lifted the glass. Could that possibly be coincidence?

I really do not like being so negative because probably the business that produced this wine thought they were doing a good thing. The best thing they did is to leave a hint of grape that you can taste soon after opening the bottle and after you have gotten numb to the rough qualities of this wine. It is the immature grape taste of sucking on a Concord Grape, nothing special but more pleasing than the strong acid. Unfortunately, the slight hint of fruit quickly evaporates and your left with the complete absence of sugars, and tannin-rich roughness. Another benefit of perhaps these other strong impressions is that this wine does not leave you with a sharp alcoholic sting as I had encountered in the two previous wines in this very very slow tasting series.

For those of you who do not like my ambiguously negative description my wife will serve you up with a straight F or "avoid, drink tea instead."

I think diabetics may want to look at this wine and others who really like very dry. If you like very bitter then perhaps you would enjoy this wine, too. But if you seriously crave bitterness then I would recommend you buy a case of Pilsner Urquell or Bitburger beer both of which give you a much more balanced bitter experience at half the cost.

I saw some positive comments about this wine online, which must be completeley misguided. Of course, I know taste is subjective. But what other posters considered complexity I considered rough, unfinished, and unbalanced. I agree that the basic wine may actually have some potential but it would take much more pre-bottling work to get that right.

Branda Azul -- 2004 Tempranillo (Rioja)

We picked up this Rioja because it was fairly inexpensive and we wanted a table wine to go well with a simple dinner of pork cutlets and beans. My wife and I just had gotten a few days past our winter colds. So, the thought of drinking anything more complicated than a table wine for this tasting slot didn't appeal to us. The wine was simple and good. We spent about $12 for a bottle. You may say that is pricey for a table wine, however, it seems that Westchester wine stores boycott drinkable wines that cost less than that.

The best part about the wine is its aroma of cherries. Its bouquet is extremely pleasant. As all Tempranillos, it is rich on tannins. The wine is overall balanced --not too much acid, not too dry, not too alcoholic tasting. The only slight imbalance is a bit of excess bitterness from the grapes' skins, not an uncommon trait but also not totally necessary, I think.

The fact that it is not too much of anything but also does not have any noteworthy strong characteristics are the reasons why I'd put this wine in the table wine category.

The wine is 75% Tempranillo and 25% percent Grenache. I think the wine would be better if the mix were around 80-20% but we should leave that to the producer's discretion.

My wife is generally a fan of Tempranillo-based wines and tends to give them her highest scores. So it is not surprising that she rated this wine higher than last month's Pinot Noir, giving it a score of 65%. Coming from her that is not a high score for a Rioja, as she has given them consistently high scores over the last few years. Many of her Rioja scores fall in her 80-90% rating band.

If you spend 50% more, you will likely get a better Rioja---there are many very good Riojas priced at about $20---but why spend any more if you are only looking for a wine to complement your meal? This bottle is perfectly well-suited to accompany a hearty winter dish.

Hans Lang --- 2005 Pinot Noir (Rheingau)

This was a typical German Spaetburgunder from Rheingau. It reminded me a lot of the inexpensive reds grown in the small Ahr region that seldom leave the country.

The wine is semi-dry and has a sharp, peppery edge. It is quite light on tannins---far from Burgundy or California Pinot Noir's. If you prefer an Oregon Pinot Noir over the Califorina varieties you'd be more likely to enjoy this wine. The wine does have a pleasant fruity bouquet.

There is no finish to the wine except that the somewhat unbalanced sharp edge hangs on for a little too long. It would probably be best to have this wine with quiche in late summer or early fall.

Overall, I would not buy this wine unless you can pick it up for somewhere between $7-10. At $16 this wine is definitively overpriced. I will not go out of my way to have this wine again. Since I only have a limited number of tastings in my life I'd rather use my next tasting slot on something new.

My wife's opinion is more to the point. She thinks this wine is nothing special at all. She's definitively had worse wines. She gave the wine a 45% score.