A Gourmet Gift Basket + Some Top Quality Wine = Perfect Present
Wine gift baskets for the holidays? The fluster of the holiday season is indeed upon us, and we could all use a little bit of help when it comes to our gift-purchasing decisions—less time deliberating and stressing means more time to celebrate, right? There is no need to be shy when it comes to looking for gift assistance, for many other people are in similar boats who also are unsure as to how to show their gratitude to, say, relatives and/or friends who live quite some distance away and whose gift preferences you know little about. These circumstances can be easily handled: the value of a gift basket is, for all intents and purposes, quite universal. Isn’t that relieving to hear? Who couldn’t use a little bit of gourmet cheese, crackers, chocolate truffles, almonds, olives, and, most importantly, wine for this joyful portion of the winter?
For this Argentina wine review, – 92 point rating – we must start with the bottle. You may get tired of me starting to write a wine review and begin with some sort of description of the packaging. But Tikal Patriota is one that I just can’t help myself. The big dark bottle weighs in at 2.8 lbs—-yes, I weighed it! It seemed like 40 lbs. I did a random sample of other wine bottles (empty) and they were coming in a 1.3 or so. So why the heavy glass? Must add something to shipping. Is it necessary to keep what’s inside the bottle in check?
Tikal Patriota 2006
Tikal Patriota (Patriot) is an Argentine wine blend of 60% Bonardo and 40% Malbec. The color is an inky, dark purple. There is probably some fruit here. Black cherries, raspberries, blueberries. I get some sort of berries but this is an Argentine wine without a lot of subtlety or nuisance. This BIG…a powerful 13.9% alcohol but dense and ripe fruit that is intense and jammy.
Argetina Wine that’s Perfect for a Summer Barbeque
This Argentine wine yells out for steak or barbeque or something meaty on the grill. If you like this modern style of powerhouse wines, especially ones at a good price, this could be the wine for you. I had steak with this wine but as much as I wanted to love Tikal Patriota 2006, ranked 92 in Wine Advocate, I didn’t.
The wine was big, balanced and I guess my style is one that is more layered. Perhaps it was young and will improve with age. I should buy another bottle of Tikal Patriota 2006 and put it aside to check that out.
We have a house on a barrier island and getting there is never easy. You have to load up the car, drive a long time, charter a boat, load the stuff onto the boat, off load the stuff onto the dock, carrier it to a car we keep on the island, load the car, drive to the house and then take the stuff up two flights of stairs.
Of course, one can not consider sitting on the porch at the ocean without a glass or two of wine to complete the experience. Hauling a case or two of wine all that way is not easy. It takes up a lot of room on all those transports, is heavy, and then there is the issue of disposing of all that glass in an environmentally responsible way.
One day I decided, what the heck, why not try a 3 liter of a box wine?
So I purchased a Bota Box Shiraz and it wasn’t bad. Ditto for the Bota Box Chardonnay and Pinot Grigio.
Box Wine Bladder Failure equals Bad Box Wine Review
On a recent trip I decided to try a Turning Leaf Pinot Noir in a box. When I opened it, it was nasty. I thought it was oxidized, but then wondered about that since box wines are a “closed” system. They use a bladder which is one of the pluses of a box wine and the wine will keep for a month although I’ve never tested that theory. But this box-o-wine was bad and there is no returning a box wine for credit.
Box wines are worth considering in another venue.
When taking a cruise, we are always like to have wine in the cabin as it is cheaper than running up those cruise ship tabs. Box wine is perfect in that kind of situation. A 3 liter red and a 3 liter white is good for two of us for a week. And if you have to throw some of away — well, there is no guilt.
But here is the problem for me—there just aren’t many decent box wines. Surely this might be an option worth considering for all that juice that can’t make it into a winemaker’s primary bottling. Of course, there are the distributors, wine merchants and the public who view box wines as a step below jug wine, but great breakout box wine may find a market niche and start to change the bias of the wine drinking public.
Black Box Wine looks to be grabbing that market!
While I haven’t tried Black Box Wine yet to review, yet they have quite a bit of buzz around them for a wine in a box! Not only is there a Black Box Merlot wine, but they have a reserve merlot and a reserve Chardonnay as well! They even say that the Black Box wine is from grapes all over the world’s best wine regions.
So while I will never, ever leave the glory of a fine wine in a glass bottle behind, sometimes there is actually a time and place for wine in a box!
Move over Wine Corks, Synthetic Wine Corks & the Screwcap!
Last week I opened a bottle of Calera Viognier 2007 because, well, I love Viognier especially from California producers. I haven’t had Calera for some time, perhaps several years, so it was like visiting with an old friend. I’ve had this wine before, but it has been a few years. What came next was not shocking—but sure as heck, surprised the heck out of me.
Instead of popping a cork or twisting off the cap, I cut foil to find a glass closure.
Glass! Was Calera just trying to one-up the competition or was this closure for real? I certainly thought Calera was above gimmicks and after tasting the wine, I would have to agree this is no gimmick. The Viognier was exactly what I thought (and hoped) it would be with nectarine aromas, silky texture that produced a wonderful mouth feel and long, lingering finish.
After sharing this bottle with friends before dinner, we decided to continue the investigation of Calera and the glass closure over a seafood dinner. So we order the Calera Pinot Noir. I think it was the Mt. Harlan Cuvee and it, too, was delightful. Lots of layering aromas and complexity, yet easy to drink and a perfect match for the seafood our table was ordering.
OK, no gimmicks here with the glass closure.
A real wine stopper. This glass stopper had a o-ring seal that obviously prevented oxidation and obvious held the stopper in and kept the wine from falling out!
“This can’t be cheap,” I thought.
I wonder if there are any “scientific” comparisons that demonstrate the effectiveness of the stoppers?
People who have any history of wine drinking have obviously observed and opened wine with alternative wine closures. Remember the first screw caps. It seems like they have been on New Zealand wines for perhaps a decade. Many people, myself included, believe they provide a tighter seal than cork, which is both good and bad. But the screwcap needs a better press agent.
I think many people still associate screwcaps with “cheap” wines.
We have all struggled wrestling those extremely tight fitting synthetic corks out of bottles as well. They almost look like real corks. They more or less make that popping noise when open and once out of the bottle they are hard to put back in. And, my “green” spouse reminds me, they are not biodegradable.
But did I tell you about the glass closures?
They are really, really neat. I may have to keep buying Calera unless someone out there knows what other wines have glass closures or glass stoppers?
A Gourmet Gift Basket + Some Top Quality Wine = Perfect Present
A real wine stopper. This glass stopper had a o-ring seal that obviously prevented oxidation and obvious held the stopper in and kept the wine from falling out!
