Panilonco Carmenere

                                                                              I.  Did.  It.

            This silly little blog, this fun, crazy “hobby”, has hit half a million views!!!!!

I was traveling last week for work.  As I left town, I was a couple hundred hits shy of the exciting 500,000 mark.  I knew it would happen while I was on the road, and I wanted to write about it as it occurred, but see above, I was WORKING, and at a super hard assignment as well.  So, even though I wanted to sit down, write, and celebrate, I had to focus, people!  Priorities, ya know?

But I am home now – so let’s par-tay!!

HALF A MILLION HITS!

I know that some bloggers have a bazillion times more views than I do, but I bet you none of them are as happy about it as I am with this half a million! 

OK, now that the celebrating is out of the way, we should probably review something, eh?  How about a wine, I haven’t reviewed a wine in a while. 

Panilonco Carmenere (2016 Reserve)  

This is a red wine from Chile.  We bought it because it is a Carmenere, and David likes to put on what he thinks is a Chilean accent and say that name loudly (much like he likes to stroll around the kitchen spouting, “montepulciano d'abruzzo” – you don’t know how many glasses of montepulciano d'abruzzo we have drunk in restaurants just so he can say the name…).  Anyway, here is what he thought of this Panilonco Carmenere:

I should add a sound file here so you can hear the name of this wine
roll off of David's tongue...

“This wine is bold and full flavored like a Cabernet Sauvignon, but kind of rough around the edges.  It doesn’t taste like turpentine, but it is not a wine that fancy French aristocrats drink while sitting around a café table.  This is a wine that is drunk by Chilean cowboys, and that’s alright!  I give it a 4.25.”

We have actually had this wine before, but I don’t think we reviewed it.  So, first things first – the LABEL is not pretty.  As we all know, first impressions count, and this wine is not one that immediately attracts the eye on the shelf.  Lucky for us, the name attracted David, so into our cart it went.

As for me, I think this is a nice red!  I really, really like it.  it is not pretentious.  It is not fruity.  It is a little bit peppery, maybe with a hint of black cherry.  Simply put, this is just a RED WINE.  We drank it with TJ’s Southwestern Chopped Salad (recently reviewed here), TJ’s pasta, TJ’s Just Sauce Turkey Bolognese (a staple in our freezer and the very first TJ’s product I ever reviewed back on January 1, 2015 here), and the TJ’s olives that I adore (reviewed here).  This wine was a really good fit with the meal.  I want to get more bottles of this one, especially now that we are switching over to red wines for the winter season. 

A nice, sturdy, reliable red.  

This win, at $5.99, is also very well priced.  And, like David said, it is not pretentious.  We went through a bunch of quasi-official wine snob reviewer sounding descriptions for what we tasted: sawdust, black pepper, cigar…  Obviously, we are not wine experts, so we checked the back label to see what the winery thought we should be tasting:  “Deep colored, concentrated and attractive nose, with notes of blackberries and mint.  The spicy flavors combines (TYPO – oops, note to label maker, that should be “combine”) with the silky tannins and the toasted vanilla from the barrel.  Delicious on its own, this wine is the perfect partner for Italian cuisine and spicy courses.”

I think this is really a good red table wine.  If you come over for dinner this winter at the Big Yellow House this may well be on offer.  I agree with David on the score – 4.25.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for helping me hit this milestone!  See ya at the 1,000,000 mark!  Until then, keep drinking wine (and shopping at Trader Joe’s)!

Bonus jumping photo - the one where David jumped so high he is almost out of frame :)

Price:  $5.99

Rating:  4.25