Bear Flag Smooth Red Blend

When M is away, the cats shall play! And what I mean by that is even though M is out of town I will charge on with drinking wine without her (Sorry M!). But even though I was not with M, I was also not alone friends, No! Today L and I hosted her friends for a dinner of tortilla soup and scallops wrapped in bacon, followed by a night of silly movies. Her friends S and M (teehee) chose some wines at the LCBO while we were out on our shopping trip, well maybe I helped a little in recommending the Gypsy White. Luckily, the red they bought was totally new to me, though came with S's strong recommendation. It is a California wine, which I don't tend to buy, I think because in my LCBO in my hometowns the California wines seemed to either come in jugs, or were blushes and were at the back of the store, meaning I'd walked past other things first. At $12.95 a bottle it is a good mid-range priced wine. It is a blend of Tempranillo, Touriga, Zinfandel, and Alicante Bouschet, according to their website, but the only grape I recognize in there is zinfandel. So surprises await indeed!

First off, in my hand-written notes of the night I labelled this one "BEST BOTTLE EVER!!" and it isn't hard to see why...

But A, you implore me, it may look good, but how does it taste? I would say this wine passed my test, but I will hand it over to the guests first ((M stuck to the white, but since this wine was delicious I didn't complain too much!):

L - I found this wine to have a slightly spicy taste to it (no, we can't tell you which spice, but concluded it was like pepper but less acrid). It has no legs but is very full bodied. It is a very enjoyable drinking wine for a girls night with a good nose and a nice finish.

S - I tried something different and gave this wine some aerating. It gave it a strong alcohol taste, so I wouldn't reccomend that in the future. Un-aerated, it was delightful drinking! It had a nice thickness to it and went really well with the scallops. Their flavour goes really well together and it brought out the more fruity side of the wine. However, I would say that when drinking it on its own after tasting it with food the flavours tasted more muted.

A- This wine was delicious with a slightly oaky or woody taste to it. It also tasted like light fruits like clementines or strawberries, not the thicker red fruits I'd talked about in the Baco Noir reviews. It tasted slightly vanilla-esque. It was even good with blackened chicken. Like S, I found that it really went best with the smoked scallops though. This was a great choice for a girl's night in wine, and was strong enough to go with our foods but soft enough to drink on its own. This was definitely not a strong red, and was even softer than the Bacos we had reviewed, but sometimes (like when watching movies at home), you don't need to taste cigars, and smoke and earth. Fruit, smokey-ness, and spice were just right for our night. All we needed was dessert!