I’ll keep this one short and to the point.  I tried Concannon Central Coast Chardonnay 2004 tonight and it is good if you’re into a classic buttery chardonnay with a nice touch of oak. The fruit is nice too — pear and nectarine.  It has a nice long finish.  I think it’s a bit more complex than many inexpensive chards I’ve tasted.  Although it is a bit predictable, that’s not necessarily a bad thing if this is what your into.

This is a smooth chardonnay.  It gets a thumbs up from me, or maybe a “bottoms up.”   At $7.99, I give it a 89 – yummy.

I’ll keep this one short and to the point.  I tried Concannon Central Coast Chardonnay 2004 tonight and it is good if you’re into a classic buttery chardonnay with a nice touch of oak. The fruit is nice too — pear and nectarine.  It has a nice long finish.  I think it’s a bit more complex than many inexpensive chards I’ve tasted.  Although it is a bit predictable, that’s not necessarily a bad thing if this is what your into.

This is a smooth chardonnay.  It gets a thumbs up from me, or maybe a “bottoms up.”   At $7.99, I give it a 89 – yummy.

I’ve come across a number of casual wine drinkers who endorse Barefoot wines as a good cheap wine.  I tried one of the reds a couple years ago (I can’t remember which one) and wasn’t that impressed, so I haven’t gone back to Barefoot until now.

The Barefoot Chardonnay is actually not that bad.  And it seems I need to retract some of my lambasting of E&J Gallo in my last post.  Why?  Because Gallo owns Barefoot – they purchased the winery back in 2005.

One of the things that did strike me as peculiar with Barefoot is that there is no vintage on the bottle.  It’s just Barefoot Chardonnay.  Apparently the year doesn’t matter.  No vintage, but they do have a big sticker that says “98 Points!”  This is from a 2002 California State Fair Wine Competition and while I’m sure this wasn’t the vintage that was entered in the competition, Barefoot is going to milk all the marketing they can out of that award.

I did not give it a 98.  I gave it an 87.  It features peach and apple flavors and a decent finish.  Overall, it’s a nice enjoyable wine for $6.99.  Not outstanding, but a decent value wine.

I have somewhat of an internal debate going on with this website.  Should I focus on small wineries that offer those hidden gems in the wine world, or should I review wines that are massed produced and anyone can find?  While I generally have an affinity for the independents, I also want this blog to be helpful to readers all over the states… not just to those who have access to the distributors & stores in my region.  So I’m trying to strike a balance…. review some wines that are available anywhere and some that may have more limited distribution.  But when I taste a wine like this one, I want to cast aside the mass producers altogether.

The culprit is Ernest & Julio Gallo Café Chardonnay.  I can’t even remember the last time I tried a Gallo wine before this (if I’ve ever had one).  Something about the brand makes me wary and this experience justified all my fears.  This wine is the sweetest Chardonnay on earth.  It tastes like apple juice sweetened by honey… a lot of honey… too much honey.  Did I mention that this wine is too sweet?  Ugh.  I forced down a glas and a half and I had to dump it.

To my surprise my wife was upset when I dumped this wine.  She called it “wasteful” and said that she kind of liked it.  What!?   So is this a gender-specific wine?  Maybe women actually enjoy this, but I know that I didn’t.  I gave it a 77.  I know you may think that rating is high, but to be fair there weren’t any bad flavors in this… it is just too damn sweet.  I could see some folks enjoying it, but I would venture to guess that the majority of them would be 21 year old women (because that’s the legal age, right?) who are “new to wine.”

If you like good, well balanced wine but are on a budget this is not the wine for you.

I’ve had a few bottles of twin fin wines recently and I’ve been pleased with all of them.  twin fin has really impressed me in several ways.  In addition to creating some very good, very approachable wines, they know how to do marketing.  They have branded twin fin as a fun everyday wine that captures the spirit of a day on the beach in California.  Whoever they hired to do their branding was well worth the expense.

The design of the bottles is fun and colorful.  The convertible and surf board on the labels embodies the sunny California essence that twin fin represents.  The srew tops are also colorful and an easy open.

I’m not sure when twin fin was founded, but they haven’t been around very long.  I couldn’t find an exact date, but they won accolades as the top new table wine brand in 2005… so, I’m guessing they started in 2005.  The company owned by Pacific Wine Partners and is run by a couple Australian winemakers – Hugh Reimers and Sam Burton.  Hugh and Sam have great winemaking credentials, but when they started twin fin they wanted it to be different frm other wineries.  I think they’ve done an awesome job.

All twin fin wines have a suggested retail price of $9.99, but I can usually find them on sale for around $7.00. 

I gave the 2005 twin fin chardonnay a shot as a part of my Chardonnay Challenge.  (I’ve found myself giving stupid names to my tasting themes… I’m not sure if it’ll continue as a trend, but it probably will).  And my verdict is: Tasty and tropical, a nice flavor with banana, pinapple and a touch of vanilla.  Very enjoyable.  It’s not the most exciting or interesting (but then what Chardonnay is?)  It is a dependable, quaffable Chard.  I gave it an 88.  If you’re looking for something simple that your sure to enjoy, try twin fin. 

There’s something about a great deal that gets me excited, so I was thrilled when I saw Dynamite Chardonnay marked $7.00 off.  That brings it into my price range at $9.99, so of course I had to buy a bottle.

I’ve had the Dynamite Zinfandel on a night out to one of my favorite restaurants here in Cincinnati, Bella Luna.  (I was about to link that until I saw how atrocious their website is — I’ll need to talk with Harry about that.  If you want to see it, you’ll need to Google it yourself.  But trust me, the food is awesome.)  Anyway… I enjoyed the Dynamite Zin, and I’ve heard a bit of buzz about Dynamite wines so I was glad to see a bottle in my price range.

I also enjoyed reading about Dynamite on their website where in one paragraph they talk about how the name was derived from how they had to use dynamite to blast away the rocky slopes to plant the vinyard.  Then a couple paragraphs later they highlight their “sustainable farming techniques.”  When did dynamite become an ingredient for sustainability? lol

The arwork on the bottle is nice.  They have a local artist design the labels for each vintage.

The Chardonnay was good, but not extraordinary.  Minimal fruitiness (apple), slight oak, a bit nutty.  Undynamic and uninspiring.  I gave this wine an 83.

A drinkable wine, but it’s boring and not worth the price… especially at the original price.  But even at the discounted price, I’d take the Veramonte Chardonnay over this one anyday and save a few dollars to boot.