I’m taking a page from Professor Bainbridge’s book and will start including wine reviews on this site. Let’s start with the trendy phenom that, at least here in the middle of the country, is “Three-buck Chuck”. Charles Shaw has recently released a 2001 Shiraz, and it’s got all of the features you want in a value-for-money New World shiraz: fruit (particularly black cherry and black raspberry), roundness in the mouth, full taste throughout. If you let it aerate in your glass for about 5 minutes, the tannic bite that you’ll get from any young wine dissipates, and the fruit comes out. While it is not as well-rounded or as nuanced a wine as the Cimicky Trump’s Shiraz 2001 that we had Friday night, it had the unmistakeable characteristics of the varietal. Speaking of which, the Cimicky Shiraz and Grenache-Shiraz are very good choices for when you are willing to spend $15.
Although the flavor is a little thin, it is an outstanding $3 bottle of wine. I think it’s the best of the $3-buck Chuck varietals, even better than their excellent Sauvignon Blanc.