First week of January has come and gone and my wife and I have opened our “Weekly Wine #1” bottle.
As no doubt clear from the Instagram description and my earlier introduction post I have no idea how to describe wine when tasting it. That is in fact one of the goals of this experiment. But before I am in a position to give you smart sounding tasting notes I will express my perception of these wines in my own words. So don’t be surprised if these posts end up being rather short.
In the last few months, when buying wine I like to check the Vivino app for reviews and experiences other people had with a particular vintage. This one has an average rating of 3.5 of 5 stars (based on 2.9k reviews). So the decision to buy it was rather straight forward.
After sniffing the cork (I don’t know why exactly we do that, but it just seems like something you have to do), I left the bottle stand for about 15 minutes, before I poured two generous glasses. A rich dark red colour delivered exactly what I was expecting from a merlot. A quick swirl in the glass, they say this action releases the aromas, and a deep inhale. Well, it smelled of red wine, I will say that much. But upon a second and third sniffs I smelled another scent. Which I couldn’t really pinpoint, but it smelled slightly sweet. That was the extent of my smelling abilities. I’m hoping to have a revelation moment sometime in the future, after which I will be able to tell you all the fruit and wood smoke aromas as well as the dietary insufficiencies of the French farmer boy who was stomping the grapes, based purely on the scent of his sweaty feet contributed to the wine.
The taste on the other hand was … a dry red. Again. No revelation effect, yet. Although I can point out that to me it didn’t feel too heavy, it was right in the middle of the heaviness spectrum, so to speak. With pleasant acidity (whatever that’s supposed to mean, I am missing the terminology for the time being, sorry, I’ll work on that). But after swallowing, it did leave a bit of a lingering bitter aftertaste. As with many other wines though, the more you drink, the better it gets. And the bottle was empty before you know it.
Verdict: 4/5
This is where our journey begins.Weekly Wine #1 was a success.
P. S. Also, feel free to follow my Vivino Profile, I’ll be posting my “notes” and ratings of the wines I try there as well.