Tonight my mother said "Okay" to red wines. Her only condition was that I choose a "playful" red. This was more of a challenge than you might think because my dad is the big red wine drinker, and thus the big red wine buyer, and so his collection is mostly made up of merlots, Cabernet Sauvignons, and other big bodied reds that I knew would make my mom say "yuck"! I chose this bottle, strangely the only Shira, because back when it was new, she used to love Yellow Tail's Shiraz (and as an LCBO clerk this became my go to recommendation for people buying red wine for people they didn't know very well). After reading the bottle that told me about how these were the best grapes Inniskillin had grown that year and set aside especially for this blend, I joked with my mom that we had probably accidentally chosen my dad's most expensive wine. Oops, turns out we were close! This wine rings in at $24.95, but my dad got it on clearance for closer to twenty. Is this a $25 dollar wine? Not for big red drinkers! If you are looking for one of those wines that you mull over for their depth and complexity, like a Merlot, this isn't that wine. My Dad liked it a lot though, so if you are going to buy wine at this price, it's good to at least like it! BUT if you are looking to please a multi-drinker crowd that includes both red and non-red drinkers, this blend was a good choice. My mom went back for a second glass, which is saying something about a red wine. I certainly appreciated the difference in taste from blending these two grapes. But now I think now with a few more wine-drinking years under my own cap I should revisit that Yellow Tail, because it is much cheaper and may by an equally versatile red at a much cheaper price ($11.95 for the normal, $15.95 for the reserve). This wine may have been more complex, but $10 more? We'll see!
A - This wine is very dark in colour and it was very jammy and smokey smelling. It was surprisingly not as fruity as it smells. It is quite a spicy wine, like pepper or steak rub. It is more of a raisiny dry fruit flavour and it has quite a dry and fruity aftertaste that really lingers, and I quite liked this linger-y-ness. Sometimes wines are just in and gone, but this one stays around. It went really nicely with our kicky mustard dressing and strawberries.
M - There is not much body to this wine in the glass but it has a very strong smell. I thought from the smell that it would be an overwhlemingly smokey tasting wine, but it's not. I don't like the dryness of it at first, but that's because I don't like dry red wines and this wine dries your tongue right out. It tastes like wood to me, I think it is probably aged. I didn't mind its aftertaste though. I went in for a second glass of this wine, which is a teller that this is a good red for people who think that they don't like red wines as much.
D - It has a slight bit of smoke in the flavour and you can taste how the Shiraz smooths out the cabernet sauvignon, which tends to be a fatter, heavier drinking red. I could drink a whole bottle of this wine. It is an easy drinker that could even probably be chilled.
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