Waterbrook 2007 Melange Noir

The Winery: Waterbrook
The Wine:  2007 Melange Noir
The Price:  $11.99 at QFC

Waterbrook Melange is a wine that I discovered several years ago, well before I started reviewing wine.  And well before I even had more than the barest of interest in wine.  I only discovered it at that time because of an article in the paper.  In my mind, it was an outrageously priced wine at around $10, but I gave it a shot anyway.  I haven't had it in ages, and I don't recall what it tasted like.  So when I saw it in the store, I thought I should review it.

The wine is a blend of 43% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon, 13% Cabernet Franc, 13% Sangiovese and1% Tempranillo.  The bottle is stopped with a natural cork and the wine was decanted an hour before tasting.

The 2007 Melange is dark purple and has aromas of cedar, blackberry, prune and pepper.

The wine has flavors of blackberry, cherry and chocolate with a mild pepper finish.  This wine is very good.  The more I taste it, the more the flavor develops.  It is an interesting and fun wine.  This one will be in my rotation for sure!

Delille Cellars 2007 D2

The Winery:  Delille Cellars
The Wine:  2007 D2
The Price:  This wine was given to me by my friend, Elena (thanks, Elena!).  Delille sells this wine on their website for $35.

Delille is a local winery for me.  They're located in Woodinville, Washington.  They are an independent winery that has been making wine since 1992.

The D2 wine from Delille has an interesting story.  The wine is made from the same grapes that were selected for their premium Chaleur Estate wine, but is comprised of juices that did not quite have the qualities that they were looking for in their Chaleur Estate label.  This is a common practice in Bordeaux, although in Bordeaux, the second label typically utilizes the fruit from the vineyard's younger vines.  As an aside, by looking for the second label for a Château from Bordeaux, you can often find a very good wine at a great savings over the Château label.  

The D2 is a blend of 51% Merlot, 40% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7.5% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petite Verdot.  The wine was corked with a natural cork and decanted an hour before tasting.  It is very dark purple in color.

The D2 has aromas of black cherry, plum, blackberry and vanilla.  It has flavors of cherry, berry, chocolate and spice.  The spicy flavor is fairly prominent, so if you don't like a lot of spice in your wine, then this isn't one for you.  Personally, I like this wine very much.  The spicy flavor is a nice balance to the fruit flavors.  While it's very good now, this is a wine that would likely benefit from a few years of additional aging.   

San Greal 2007 Red Supper Wine

The Winery: San Greal
The Wine:  2007 Red Supper Wine
The Price:  $6.99 at Trader Joe's

San Greal takes their name from the French for Holy Grail.  The winery is located in California's Mendocino County, in the Russian River valley; the origin of many fine wines. 

The wine is a blend of 55% Syrah, 23% Merlot and 22% Sangiovese.  This is information that they left off the label, but I was able to find it on their website.  The wine is dark red in color.  The bottle was stopped with a screw cap, and the wine was decanted 45 minutes before tasting. 

The wine has aromas of blackberry, cherry and black pepper. 

The wine is fairly awful.  It has a very gritty mouth-feel.  It has a strong alcohol flavor, which overwhelms the flavor of the wine.  Once you get through the alcohol flavor, there are flavors of berries and spice. But the berry flavor is fairly tart and not at all appealing. 

They call this Red Supper Wine.  Last Supper is more like it.  Yuck!  As I said at the beginning, Mendocino's Russian River Valley is the origin of many fine wines. This, however, is not one of them.