Flat Rock 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon - ~$4

Rounding out Fresh & Easy's Flat Rock series is this very young (2009) California Cabernet Sauvignon.

The wine is a somewhat washed-out garnet in the glass and offers simple but pleasant aromas of cassis, cherry, and raspberry. In the mouth the cherry persists but overall the wine is thin (more cherry cough syrup than cherry fruit) and closes with somewhat out-of-whack tannic astringency. After an hour in the glass, some leathery earthiness emerges and the tannins become better integrated.

So zero-for-three, I suppose. Perhaps the the fundamental problem, or perhaps problems, with the Flat Rock series of wines is that it's just hard to make good Californian wine in this price range (unless, like Gallo or Mondavi, you have access to huge swathes of vineyards all over California). Secondly, going up just a few dollars (and knowing what to look for) can raise the quality level substantially. Sebastiani's Pepperwood Grove label, Columbia Crest's Two Vines series, Estancia's Pinnacles bottlings - to name a few - all typically deliver decent-to-good in the ~$7 - $10 range. And that's not counting imported wine, like, say Australian over-achievers Rosemount, Lindeman's, and Penfolds' Rawson's Retreat.

My local Fresh & Easy here in Arizona is offering a bunch of good wines at pretty good discounts. For example I can get the La Parra Loca Tempranillo/Shiraz blend for under ~$5 a bottle, and quite a bit less if I buy a half-case or more. So I'd skip the flat Flat Rock series (boy, they got the first part of the name right!) and stock your own value wine shelves with wines that have a little more to say.




Score

Drinkability: 3/10
Price: 5/5
Total value: 7/15

Saludas 2009 Vino de la Tierra White - ~$3

Unlike its red counterpart, the white version of Saludas offers no indication of grape varietal. My guess is that there's a few a grapes in the mix here, and that Viura might be playing a leading role.

This wine is quite pale in the glass, almost transparent. The nose gives up green apple and lemon-lime, and these notes follow through in the mouth, closing out with a limey, slightly harsh astringency. It's not unlike a Vinho Verde but without the effervescence and with a bit too much green sourness on the finish.

I'd love to see Fresh & Easy bring in a good Vinho Verde, but I doubt that they could offer it at ~$3. And if they did offer such a wine, well, it'd likely be somewhat underwhelming and best served well chilled.



Score

Drinkability: 3.5/10
Price: 5/5
Total value: 8.5/15

Recoleta 2008 Malbec/Bonarda - ~$5

Given the grapes here – Malbec and Argentina’s other reclaimed European grape, Bonarda – I was expecting that this bottling from Mendoza would be something of a fruit bomb. Certainly there’s some fruit here – notably bright Bing cherry – but the acidity is rather screeching and overwhelms the entire experience. All in all the wine tastes young and closed. A dud more than a bomb, it turns out, more than likely because of the recency of its vintage.

I realize that nobody is going to lay down a ~$5 wine they bought at Fresh & Easy. The point is, you shouldn’t have to: the winemaker should do that for you (well, for a red, at any rate). And some do. It will likely cost you a bit more, but in most instances the price is worth the value.

But back to this wine: I’m thinking it may be a good candidate for an "accelerated aging experiment" on the top of my refrigerator.

Score

Drinkability: 3/10
Price: 4/5
Total value: 7/15

Cape Peak Chardonnay ~$5

Here’s a recent addition Fresh & Easy’s wine selection, a South African Chardonnay. South Africa’s been coming on gangbusters for a little over a decade now, trying to compete in the international market with international varietals and doing quite well in recent years. This Chard, from the no doubt corporately-named “Cape Peak” series of wines is sourced to the entire “West Cape” region, which is more or less the equivalent of “South Eastern Australia” or “California.” However, Stellenbosch and Paarl (both Cape regions) have been turning out some excellent Chards of late, so it’s not unreasonable to expect a “state” wine to be pretty good.

They say that Chardonnay is the winemaker’s grape because the juice itself is rather neutral; it is the winemaker’s decisions after the grapes have been picked that determine the taste of the wine that ends up in the bottle. The decisions in this case are, um, interesting. In short, this wine comes off both on the nose and the palate as a Sauvignon Blanc. There’s just enough varietal character here to make a credible case for Chardonnay (and I’m sure that it’s Chardonnay juice in the wine – it has the white certification tag on the capsule attesting to as much, per South African wine law), but it pushes the recent trend toward unoaked Chardonnay to the extreme.

In the glass the wine is a very pale straw color. The nose offers up grass, citrus, and faint notes of honey. Green apple and limey citrus dominate the palate and the wine finishes with what was for me an off sourness. All in all, its drinkability suffered on account of this varietal muddle.

If you love New World Sauvignon Blancs (from New Zealand, especially) – and frankly, I like but don’t love this style – and you’re trying to meet a Chardonnay fan somewhere in the middle, this wine might work for you. Keep in mind that that “somewhere” is quite a bit closer to your taste in wine than hers.

Score

Drinkability: 4/10
Price: 4.5/5
Total value: 8.5/15

2006 Leccino Zinfandel (~$7)

Credit where credit is due: this is a pretty good-looking bottle. An understated paper label, nice fonts, and the promising pedigree "Lodi" and "Old Vine" (a bit more on this in another post). A bit generic, I suppose, but a relief from the over-the-top visual aesthetic of many bottom-shelf wines.

The nose is pleasant, featuring briary earth, cloves, and a bit of cedar. The palate (i.e. kind of the whole point of opening a bottle) is a pretty big let down, however. Raspberry and blackberry predominate, flecked though with bits of black pepper and tar. The tannins are sharp and astringent, coating the tongue without offering much in the way of structure. The finish is short and a bit hot, as the 14.5% ABV makes a rather unpleasant appearance. After half an hour in the glass, the wine actually tasted flabbier and more alcoholic.

Spend the extra couple of bucks on a bottle of Gnarly Head.

(Oh, and a Silver Medal at SF's 2009 Wine Competition? Seriously?)

Score

Drinkability: 3/10
Price: 4/5
Total Value: 7/15