The Gourmez

Cocobon 2010 Red Wine California   This is one of those wines I selected based on the label design, and I’m not ashamed. Look at how pretty that brown and beige label is! I love it. The taste ends on mildly sweetened cranberries, and it starts with milk chocolate and pomegranate seeds. Those fruit flavors [...]

Tres Pinos 2009 Red Wine San Luis Obispo, CA This wine is from my stomping grounds, though I didn’t know much about wine back when I stomped there (that’s only been marginally improved). There is a sharp cranberry smell followed by the lush scent of fresh, moist dirt—a great nose, as far as I’m concerned. [...]

Shelton Vineyards Madison Lee Red Wine Dobson, NC I like Shelton Vineyard’s pinwheel logo—it has a bit of renaissance flair to it. This is the first time the filter on my wine aerator has come in handy; there’s a lot of silt in the bottle. It smells of Dove dark chocolate (you know, that somehow [...]

Marqués de Cáceres Crianza 2006 Cosecha Rioja, Spain Everything I like about Spanish wine is in this glass—spicy, leathery, fruit that is ripe to bursting, cayenne, maybe even a mild curry. The first notes, though, were of chocolate and raspberry.  The chocolate’s mostly from the nose, but it helps mellow the wine, almost giving it [...]