Incanto Chardonnay Pinot Grigio

First, let me lay this on the line:  I have coveted this big ass blue bottle of wine every year when Trader Joe’s brings it out around the holiday time.  TJ’s always have special, super huge wine bottles, and they are sooooo appealing to my eyes!  Seriously, every year I want to buy them.  David and I normally grocery shop together, and I know that he, being the more realistic (and once in a while the more responsible) of the two of us must think these big ol’ wine bottles are ridiculous.  And, in my heart, I have always known he was right.  So, year after year I have held back and not snuck one of these big wines into our cart.

But this year – oh, this year I WENT FOR IT!  I got brave enough to snag one of these bottles on a night I was shopping without David actually 😊 .  But look at it – it is gorgeous!  The shape of the bottle.  The size.  But mostly, the color! I mean, how bad would this Italian blend have to taste to undo all of those positives???

Here is David before the bottle was opened.  See - it is LARGE!

So, this holiday season, I got one and we hauled it down to Florida with us.  I thought we might drink it if we had friends over, but (as almost always happens in our lives), we were hermits and didn’t have a dinner party.  We were invited to a friend’s house for New Year’s Day dinner, and I guess it would have been nice to bring this bottle, but it just felt a little strange.  There were going to be 5 people at the meal, and in we would walk with a huge ass bottle of wine?  What if we were the only wine drinkers?

Close up of the label

Now January is ticking by and we still hadn’t opened this bottle...  One night our friend Sarah said she was going to stop by (and I know she likes wine).   Voila – there’s my chance!  I had David open the bottle and the 3 of us did a taste test.  Here is what we thought:

Well isn't this elegant??  Bottle is too big for the fridge

Susan:  Before I can discuss the taste of the wine, I must talk through the logistics of it.  This.  Wine bottle.  Is.  Ridonkulous!!  It is white wine and we wanted it chilled, but the big bottle most certainly could not stand up in our refrigerator.  It ended up lying on its side and taking up a big chunk of the fridge (though to be honest, for a day or so it served as a “shelf” as David rested his used paint brush (wrapped in Saranwrap) on top of the horizontal bottle…).  OK, now on to the taste:  The taste is sort of water-y to me – there is not much taste.  Because of that I wound up drinking it pretty fast.  So, if your goal is to down wine quickly (and therefore feel a bit tipsy quickly…), this might be a good pick.  Artistically it is beautiful.  Logistically it is stupid.  And to be honest, the actual wine seemed sort of incidental!  I will give the taste of this wine 3.75.  If I gave a score for the look of the bottle it would be a 5, but if I gave a score for the usability of the bottle (squishing it in your fridge) it would be a 2.  So, I will average those scores together and give the overall product a score of 3.5.

David gives Incanto a try

David: “I think this is good, it is nice and cold which is good for this wine.  It has a little bit of a fruity taste.  It has a hint of a chardonnay kind of oakiness – I don’t like chardonnay but this was not too much, so I thought it balanced it out kind of nice.  This is not a wine I would seek out, but I am delighted to drink it.  I guess I will give it a 4.  (David added that he should have docked his score because of the unwieldy size of the bottle.)”

Sarah refilling her glass
 (by the way, this bottle is hard to pour, too!  It comes out super fast.)

Sarah: “I did not like this wine at the first sip, because it tasted like chardonnay and I do not normally like chardonnay.  But I kept drinking, and (like most wines) then I enjoyed it more.   It ended up being more fruity than dry, which I liked.  This is a super easy wine to drink.  I will give it a solid 4.5.”

Overall, I suggest only buying this big bottle of wine if you have plans to drink it all in one sitting.  That way you can chill it, uncork it, and drink it all without having to worry about re-corking it to lay sideways in your fridge.

Price:  $12.99 (cheap when you consider it is the equivalent of 2 bottles of wine)

Rating (average of 3 raters):  4

Maria Jola Sangria (Red AND White)

This is an unusual review, in that I am going to actually review TWO products in ONE review.  But I feel I must put them together, to save you the sadness that befell us.  Therefore, this review will cover:

RED Sangria

and

WHITE Sangria

Consider this a Public Service Announcement…  In my mind, SUMMER SANGRIA SEASON IS NOT OVER YET.  I refuse to believe that autumn is right around the corner.  So read these reviews, then rush to TJ’s and stock up on (red only) sangria.

BUY THIS BOTTLE!!
(Well, not THIS bottle, we already drank this one, but a bottle that looks just like this one!)

Let me say this right off the bat – we loved the red Maria Jola sangria (which I shall review first!).  We loved it so much, that after we drank it, the next time we were at Trader Joe’s and saw the WHITE version, we thought, “Hey!  The red was soooo tasty, the WHITE kind has to be delicious too, right?”.  Oh man, were we suckers.

First review – RED Maria Jola Sangria

We lugged a bottle of red sangria with us from Virginia down to Florida (land of “no Trader Joe’s near where we stay…”).  One lovely Florida day we swam in the ocean, rehearsed David’s show on the back patio (which makes a great “stage”), then I capped off the day by making a pitcher of SANGRIA!  I put the bottle of red sangria in a pitcher and added fresh orange slices, fresh blueberries, fresh strawberries, and a little bit of Meyers lemon from our very own fruit cocktail tree (whose name is Trixie!).*  I refrigerated the whole shebang for a while to let it chill.  My opinion is that the longer the fruit is in the sangria the better the whole thing gets (though our opinions might have been skewed by the increasing amount of sangria we put into our systems as the night wore on…).

Us on the BEACH!  (This was pre-sangria, we were not day drinkin'...)

And speaking of the fruit, it tastes super delicious to munch on after it has stewed a while!  When you pour this make sure everyone gets fruit in their cups!  It is like a healthy (??) little serving of fruit with your drink.    

Anyway, this red sangria is really good, especially if it is very cold.  It is a great summer time drink. 

Trixie the Fruit Cocktail Tree loaded down with Meyer Lemons

It may LOOK like a lime but it is a Meyer Lemon

David’s take on it: “I agree with what Susan said completely.  This is much better than I expected.  I have had a lot of sangrias that just take like not very good wine with fruit thrown in them, but this is (maybe because of how Susan prepared it!) very, very nice and fruity.  It is the way I think a NICE sangria you might get somewhere in Spain or Europe somewhere would taste, or at a nice restaurant.  It tastes very summery – the strawberries and lemons taste fantastic, too!   I like that it isn’t too strong – it lets you drink more of it!!  (Editor’s note:  the label says the alcohol content is 7%.)  I give this red sangria a 4.25.”

Susan:  I agree with that score – a 4.25.  It is not too sweet, it is not chemically tasting…  It tastes a bit PUNCHY (and, we both agree, if you drink enough of it, YOU GET A BIT PUNCHY!).

Price – $6.99

Rating – 4.25

* If you do not a fruit cocktail tree to pick your own Meyer Lemon off of, you can find them in season at Trader Joe's!  Excellent review of them from day 3 of this blog here: Meyer Sweet Lemons 

Second review – WHITE Maria Jola Sangria

I added raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, and orange slices in this sangria.  As you just read above, we really dug the red sangria, so I was excited to have this white one!   I like white sangria when we order it at restaurants!  We thought this bottled version of white would be juuuust as tasty as the red one.

(I hate to keep bringing up the RED SANGRIA, but geez Louise,
it is yummy!  We brought it to a dinner the other night...)

We were wrong.

When David first tasted it he said it was “perfume-y”, and I think that is the right term.  There is too much “perfume”-like scent to it.  When you raise your glass to take a drink, it smells too much like PERFUME, and then you TASTE the perfume…  And somehow, to my “sophisticated palate”, that “perfume-y” taste makes it takes like BATHROOM CLEANER.

To be perfectly transparent here, I have never drunk bathroom cleaner.  And I am not saying this product tastes TOXIC or anything…  It just tastes too much like it smells…   Do you know what I mean?  It is hard to describe.  I would say you need to taste it to understand what I am trying to explain, but that would mean you have to actually taste it, and I don’t want you to have to do that!

I give this a 2.25 rating.  I MUCH PREFER the red version.

Obviously I get excited over the red version....

David’s opinion: “This white sangria is too sweet and too perfume-y so it overpowers the fruit.  I can’t even really taste the fruit as much as I would like.  I think would be a better sangria if it were made with a more “transparent” white like a vino verde or something.  It is WINE, and it is not UNPLEASANT, but if I went shopping for sangria again I would get the RED instead of this one. I would give this white sangria a 3.5.” 

Price – $5.99 (a dollar cheaper than the red, but spend the extra buck, trust me!)

Rating - 3

Amancay Winery Reserve Torrontes La Rioja (2014)

This is an Argentinian white wine that David chose when we were on a Trader Joe’s wine binge (well, maybe not a binge, but stocking up before we escaped to Florida, which, while great to visit, does not have a Trader Joe’s anywhere near where we stay). 

We drank this Torrontes La Rioja chilled and paired it with LEFTOVERS J.  Cuz nuttin’ pairs better with leftovers than a cold Torrontes, right?

Very reasonably priced wine from Argentina

And speaking of cold, did you know that the United States is the only country that has refused to switch to metric??  When I was in school I remember that they tried to teach us about the metric system for a couple of years before they gave up - you know, these are centimeters, this is a meter, and hey, how about if we measure temperature in CELSIUS instead of Fahrenheit??  I mention this because this bottle of wine says it should be served at “10 degrees Celsius”.  Then, for the morons in America, they have to save space on the label to let us know that in our slow-to-adapt-something-that-everyone-else-uses, that means 50 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Other than the recommended serving temperature, this label also says that this wine is “An intense white wine, showing mandarin, rose petal, and tropical fruit flavors, along with a crisp, juicy finish that will leave you enchanted.”  Damn – enchanted??  That’s a pretty high bar you are settin’ for yourselves there, Amancay Winery! 

This wine has a fun to say name!

Let me spend just a second more on the LABEL – it looks a bit like a junior high school student drew it…  Maybe it is supposed to be a dock, a boardwalk perhaps, with some fencing around it and a mountain…  The mountain seems to have a bit of DEPTH to it, making me think that they spent extra money to get a fancy LABEL, but they didn’t spend extra money on the ARTIST…  I am gonna guess they held a contest in the local junior high school and the winner got his/her artwork on a bottle of wine. 

See how the mountains have a bit of RELIEF??  Extra money for that, I am sure!

Now – the WINE.  David says he chose it because we hadn’t had it before and it has a name that is fun to pronounce.  “I think this thing is doing all of the things that it wants to do, and doing them well, but they are not things that I really ENJOY.  I think this wine has a little bit too much PAINT THINNER notes to it for my taste…  It out-chardonnays chardonnay in terms of that strong flavor…  I like a LIGHTER white wine.  But if you like to drink turpentine, then  this is your wine!  I will say, it does pair well with leftovers…  I suggest serving it with leftovers (as opposed to wasting a good meal on it)…  I give it a 2.5.  I think it does what it wants to do, it is just not what I like.”

Here is my take:  one time we went to a winery in St. Augustine, Florida* (DO NOT LAUGH, we realize that in and of itself is a ridiculous concept…  Winery + Florida does not = a good experience…)  Anyway, we WENT TO A WINERY IN FLORIDA.  While there, we drank a wine that tasted, I kid you not, like CAT PEE.  It was incredible!!!  It had a cat pee SCENT and a cat pee TASTE!  Not that we had partaken of a glass of cat pee prior to that evening, but we all agreed that the wine being poured was CAT PEE FLAVORED!

David and my sister slamming back some cat pee flavored wine in Florida - ahhh those were the days...

This bottle of wine from Trader Joe’s (Amancay Winery Reserve Torrontes La Rioja) also tastes a bit like cat pee!!!  Not as much as the super pee-flavored one we had at the Florida winery, but this has more than a hint of “cat pee” in it. 

All in all, this is not as horrible as the FLORIDA CAT PEE wine, but it is still not being added to our “Hey, pick up a bottle of that next time you are at Trader Joe’s!” list.   We DID finish this bottle.  Heck, we have only thrown away 2 bottles of opened, unfinished wine ever (one being “Scary Clown Wine” reviewed here:  Scary Clown Wine

I agree with David on the score – I will give it a 2.5, too.  But maybe someone who reads this will like it better than we did.  J

While in St. Augustine, Florida we popped by the Fountain of Youth, but it was closed.
However, that didn't stop us from letting the magical powers of the fountain from erasing all of our wrinkles!

Price – $6.99

Rating – 2.5

*If you want to taste the cat pee wine, I can’t remember which one it was that we tasted, but you can go on the tour of St. Sebastian Winery and taste it for yourself!  The tour was sweet and it was very fun tasting their wines, even if one of them WAS cat pee flavored.  Here is their website:  San Sebastian Winery

Day 355 - Gaetano d’ Aquino Chianti Riserva

TEN DAYS LEFT.

Ten more days of 2015.  Ten more days for this massive project!  Ten more reviews!!

Before we start today's, let's just have a quick "Moment of Zen", shall we?  This is from my walk on the beach this afternoon.  Enjoy (I sure did).

Now - CHIANTI!!

Italian Chianti, normally one of my favorite types of wine.

Here is what David thinks of this wine:  “Nice.  Tasty.  Full flavored wine.  It really gives you a lot of “red wine” taste.  It goes well with a big meal.  I give it a 4.”

I do not like this Chianti as well as our usual Chianti, which I presumed I reviewed much earlier this year.  There I go again, presuming…  You know all that does is make a “pres” out of you and me…  I just looked back and see that I never reviewed it!  But now that I look at photos of it, why I do believe it is the SAME maker as this Chianti Riserva, only skip the RISERVA!! 

Here is the one we often buy, this is NOT what is being reviewed here

So our “go to Chianti” is Gaetano d’Aquino Chianti, which is a buck cheaper than the Riserva I am reviewing here.  To my taste buds, that “non-Riserva” is better – more “clean” tasting (yes I realize that is probably not a “wine reviewer” word…) and delicious.  I wish I had a bottle of that Chianti to place next to this Riserva, and you KNOW if we were still in Virginia I would run to Trader Joe’s right this very moment and pick one up to do a blind side by side taste test!  But alas, the nearest TJ’s at the moment is 90 minutes away, and we still have to put decorations on the Christmas tree and make the Christmas cards…  I do not think a road trip for Chianti is in the cards right now…

We served this Riserva with a “breakfast for dinner” – eggs, toast, bacon, hashbrowns, and a TJ’s Mega Crunch Salad with a Bite ( reviewed here ).  So maybe part of the problem was that we were essentially drinking WINE with BREAKFAST (even though it was 10:00 pm – man when I write that I see how screwed up we really are!!!). 

David, remote control in hand, wearing "shorts" he "made" by cutting off pants.  Sexy.

All in all, this wine just doesn’t taste as full-bodied and delicious as the non-Riserva bottle.  The non-Riserva one wins for me and it is a buck cheaper.  Heck, I am a cheap date.  Maybe that is why David sticks with me.  J

Sometimes you don't even grab a proper wine glass...

Cheaper and better

A bit more money without a better taste

I give this Riserva bottle a 3.  I say that TJ's has loads of wines that are better than this that you should choose from.  David, however, says he thinks we should all just learn to get along and live in peace and harmony.  I think the spirit of the season (or the SPIRITS of the season??) may have gotten to him...

Ok, we must decorate our Christmas tree!  It has stood here naked long enough.

Price – $5.99

Rating – 3.5