Panilonco

I know I don't post often here, but we haven't been drinking a whole lot of wine. Summer was for cheap beer and gin 'n tonics, and now we've moved into brandy season.

I did realize that I haven't posted about Panilonco, which is by far my favorite TJ's wine right now! It's only $3.99 a bottle, and it comes in two varieties of red (there's a white option, but I haven't tried it yet): Merlot, and a blend of two types I don't recognize. It's from Chile, so it has a lot of yummy spiciness and pep. It's full-bodied, but not real thick.

I really like the Diablo wine from Concha y Torro (is that what it's called?), but this is like the cheaper version of it.

I will never drink Charles Shaw again, as long as Panilonco is in stock.

Black Mountain

I used this wine for my oil bottle photo shoot, and I think I splurged a little on the price, although I don't remember it. It was a few months ago.

I do remember really really liking the wine though! Maybe that's because I was also munching on fancy herbed kalamata olive oil, grapes, fresh parm, and baguette. Hm?

I should buy this wine again and see if it's really as good as it seemed. Or I should recreate the whole photo shoot, since that was definitely good!

Wrapped Bottle Chianti

Sean really liked this wine the first time we had it, but then decided it wasn't as good the second time. I can't remember anything about it from either time, so I guess it was okay but not great.

It comes in this cool raffia-wrapped bottle, which might be impressive for company or something, but I think it was a little more expensive than the super cheap-0 stuff we've been drinking. Probably not worth getting again.

Egri Merlot $3.99

This wine is from Hungary, and I love that the distributor is "Vitavin". Like, "wine for life" or something like that. Very nice! Also, the bottle is an especially nice, dark green color.

The wine tasted like German schnapps: extremely fruity, but really sour. I really really liked it! It went horribly with the pasta and tomato sauce that Sean had made for dinner, but it was really interesting and unexpected.

I would certainly get this again, especially since it was on the very cheap side ($3.99, I think), but I don't know when I'd serve it. Maybe after dinner? It's definitely not a dessert wine, though. Just something interesting to drink.

Oh, I love the label too! Stark white with bright red and black lettering--very German. Or, more probably, Hungarian.

Amaicha $4.99

We've had this one a few times now. I didn't really like it at first, but I've learned to really like it. It's now my new stand-by when I want something really cheap and easy to drink.

The smaller label on the bottom reads: Bonarda - Mendoza - 2005 - Argentina. I guess Bonarda is the style then?

It's pretty full-bodied, a little bit spicy (like black pepper) and fruity. We drank this after an especially stressful day of dealing with banks, bills, finding new car insurance, and other crap that you have to do when you move across the country. It relieved a bit of stress. I wasn't paying that much attention to the taste of the wine though, I'll admit. I liked it better than the Gaetano stuff from a few days ago.

Hopefully our next bottle will be a bit more rewarding than this, even though it wasn't bad. I think this one was only 5 bucks anyway. I think the complexity of wine goes up quite a bit around $7-9, so maybe I'll splurge for one of those bottles next.

Gaetano D'aquino $3.49

Now that we live in Oregon, we can see what our new TJ's has to offer. Since we didn't get very far in trying out the cheap wine in Massachusetts, we don't have much to compare it too. We do live closer to the Joe than any other business, so there's a chance we'll do more shopping there now.

For a wine that's only 50 cents more expensive than 3-Buck Chuck, I guess I got my money's worth with Gaetano D'aquino's Merlot. I still might have preferred the Charles Shaw, though. It wasn't really that bad. It was just very watered-down tasting, and extremely fruity for a merlot. When I buy merlot, I usually expect it to be full-bodied, and this wine was not.

If you're into thin, fruity wine without any off-flavors, give this a go. Sean really liked it, so I don't know what that means. He normally doesn't go for this type of wine at all. It was sort of a "chugging" kind of wine - I had finished my two glasses before I even realized it.

This brand seemed to have a lot of varieties to choose from, all nestled together on the two bottom shelves of the Italian wine section at our new Trader Joe's. They were completely sold out of their Chianti, which makes me want to try that one next. Hell, for $3.49, I'll try all the flavors!

The label on the bottle isn't anything special (all the other varieties of this brand had the same label, in a different hue), but the fancy glass "seal" is pretty cool. I might not have bought it without that detail. Wine purchased based on the bottle aesthetic is a whole other blog, though.

J.W. Morris $3.99

This is a 2004 Merlot from California. I initially had low expectations for this bottle, since the cork smelled musty when first opened, but I haven't noticed any off-flavors while drinking my first glass. It doesn't have great "legs" (I think that's how you refer to it...) but I'm enjoying it anyway. My first impressions were of the dryness of this wine, but after a few sips, it seems less crisp. Maybe I've just gotten used to it. Or maybe the razor-sharp dryness has severed off a good portion of the nerve-endings in my tongue. Either way, it's pretty good.

There's nothing really remarkable or noticeable about this wine. It's very dry, which I like, but "pretty good" is all it gets as a rating. Maybe a little less than "pretty good", really. Totally drinkable though, but not necessarily worth the extra dollar more than 3 buck chuck.