Celler de Capcanes 2005 Mas Donis Barrica

The Winery: Celler de Capcanes
The Wine: 2005 Mas Donis Barrica
The Price: $18.99 at Central Market

This wine is not listed on Celler de Capcanes' website. I think that the reason for this is that this wine is custom made for Eric Solomon at European Cellars. The wine is a blend of 85% Grenache and 15% Syrah.

Celler de Capcanes has an interesting history. They owe much of their success to being approached by the Jewish community in Barcelona to product Kosher wine. In order to produce the Kosher wine, they were forced to buy new equipment. You can read more about the history on their website.

The wine was sealed with a composite cork. I don't recall encountering a Spanish wine with a composite cork before. The wine was decanted a full hour before being reviewed.

The wine has aromas of prunes and cherries with a subtle oak undertone.

This is a fabulous wine! It easily competes with wines in the $25+ range. It has flavors of cherry and blackberry with a bit of a pepper finish. The wine is bursting with fruit flavor. This is an awesome wine. I can't say enough about it. This is definitely one of the top three wines I've had this year.

Recession Review: Hogue 2007 Late Harvest White Riesling

The Winery: Hogue Cellars
The Wine: 2007 Late Harvest White Riesling
The Price: $7.99 at QFC (marked down from $9.99)

When looking through my previous reviews to find a wine to review tonight, I was surprised to discover that I've never reviewed any of the wines from Hogue Cellars. Their wines are very available in my area, so I've had ample opportunity to sample and review them.

This wine has a screw cap, which is not a surprise at this price point.

The wine is a very pale wheat color. It has aromas of apples, honey and pears.

The wine has a very rich, thick feel to it. It is fairly sweet, having flavors of apples with a slight citrus finish.

I am a big fan of the Late Harvest/Cellarmaster Rieslings that are produced in the Northwest. This is one of my favorites. It is a great wine, especially considering that the sale price brings it into the Recession Review $8 cut-off.

Louis Jadot 2005 Pinot Noir Bourgogne

The Winery: Louis Jadot
The Wine: 2005 Pinot Noir Bourgogne
The Price: $19.99 at Albertson's (marked down from $21.99)

I decanted this wine about 40 minutes before reviewing it (when I think to do so, I will try to note how long each wine was allowed to breathe before the review). The bottle was stopped with a natural cork.

The wine is not as dark as Pinot Noirs that I see from Oregon/Washington. It is deep red color, but lets a lot more light through than the Northwest wines. The wine has rich aromas of cherries, blackberries and a hint of oak.

The wine is a little tart. It has a sour cherry flavor with hints of cinnamon and vanilla with a slight pepper finish.

This is a fairly good Pinot Noir. It's not knock-your-socks-off good, but it is a better than average wine for a $20 Pinot Noir.

Recession Review: Columbia Crest 2007 Two Vines Riesling

The Winery: Columbia Crest
The Wine: 2007 Two Vines Riesling
The Price: $5.99 (on sale at QFC - the regular price is $7.99)

I haven't reviewed a white wine recently, so I thought it was about time. I tend to drink white wines during warmer weather since it's served chilled. Tonight I had a hard workout at the gym, so a white wine seemed refreshing.

The wine is corked with a synthetic cork, not a huge surprised at this price point. But a disappointment nonetheless. The wine is a pale straw color, and has very good clarity. It has aromas of crisp apples and pears.

The wine is very sweet. It has a refreshing apple flavor, with a very crisp, smooth finish. While I wouldn't want this wine every day, it is one of those wines that would be great on a warm summer evening. And at $5.99 it's an absolute bargain!

Bishop Creek Cellars 2005 Pinot Noir

The Winery: Bishop Creek Cellars
The Wine: 2005 Pinot Noir
The Price: $23.99 at Central Market

Bishop Creek Cellars is an Oregon winery. It's not a winery that I'm familiar with, so I'm looking forward to trying this one out. They have one of those odd websites that doesn't look like it's really their own site. The Bishop Creek Cellars URL redirects to Urbanwineworks.com. In my brief poking around I don't see a connection between the winery and Urban Wineworks. Whatever the connection, I think it's a bad business practice to combine the winery website with a wine seller/tasting room website. It's unprofessional and makes it appear that Bishop Creek Cellars is not able to manage their own website. This is 2009 - there's no reason for ANY business to not have their own website.

Now on to the wine. The bottle is stopped with a natural cork stopper, winning points in my battle against synthetic corks and screw tops.

This bottle of wine had a lot more sediment than I've seen in a long time. The wine is deep, dark red but has a slightly milky/cloudy cast to it.

The wine has aromas of cherries, berries and autumn leaves.

This is a pretty bland wine. It's very disappointing. There is just no flavor development at all. It kind of has the velvet feel of a good Pinot Noir, but where is the flavor? There's nothing. I'm baffled. Completely and utterly baffled. How can you start with grapes and end up with a flavorless wine? It doesn't taste watery. It just doesn't taste.

This wine is like going on a first date with that totally uninteresting person. There's no character, no personality, and they're totally unmemorable. A week down the road you don't really remember anything about them. You don't remember their name. You might remember what they look like. But everything else just blends together as just another tasteless ingredient making up the gruel of bad first dates.

I won't be buying this one again.

Cleavage Creek

Somebody told me about Cleavage Creek several months back, but I've yet to see it at any of my wine shops. It's too bad. The line should be in every wine shop and grocery store. I would like to review one or more of these wines. If anybody in the Seattle area knows of a store that carries them, let me know.