The Back Story:
Unfortunately, not every wine I review is going to turn out to be a winner. It’s even more depressing when the wine that I find less than satisfactory is local; it pains me to not be able to support small wineries, but it’s also necessary to remain impartial. I’m going to share with you, after giving my best score ever, the worst wine I’ve yet reviewed: Non-Vintage Grove Winery Rosé.
Back at the end of January, I bought a two-wine pack from Grove Winery called “Drink the Pink” for $20. The pack contained a blush fruit wine blend and a Rosé, which I figured would be good way for me to branch out from my usual fare. I obviously didn’t research my purchase enough because I ended up with two non-vintage wines. Now, I’m not saying that a wine needs a vintage to be a decent wine, but it’s not a good sign that I wasn’t given enough information to know I was getting non-vintage. This is one of those “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me” kind of situations, except I got both barrels at once. Most uncool.
About the wine itself? As I said before, it’s non-vintage, pressed from 100% Sangiovese grapes. The information online about this wine is sparse. I basically only know what’s on the bottle and what’s on the Grove Winery website.
The Results:
The appearance of the wine was a dark pink with a very unhealthy brown tinge. This is not a good sign, folks. Swirls suggested something akin to water.
The nose of the wine was rather weak. It was very floral with a hint of plum. It smelled sickeningly sweet which combined with the floral bouquet to give off a rather rotten scent.
The mouthfeel of the wine was utterly forgettable. Like liquid dead weight.
The flavor of the wine was, as you might guess, not good. It was basically floral with a slight pepper finish and a weird metallic undertone that just didn’t fit a sweet wine. It was surprisingly acidic but poorly balanced, giving the wine an acrid aftertaste.
For the Casual Drinker:
I’ve got nothing on this wine to recommend. The flavor is bad, the smell is bad, and it’s priced well out of the bargain wine range. I tried pairing it with a BLT and it ruined the BLT.
The Conclusion:
This is the worst wine I’ve reviewed so far, and at $15, it’s not even priced low enough to recommend that those with different tastes might experiment with it. 1/10.
Update: Currently, an ’08 Sangiovese courtesy of the winemaker is on its way. I’ll move it up the queue in my list of wines to review so I can give them a fair shake on their specialty. After all, we can’t let an experimental wine be the only representation of the winery on the blog.
February 18, 2010 at 10:06 am
Wow! A 1 rating. I love your line about it ruining the BLT, that pretty much seems to sum up the experience.
It is a bummer to have to give a bad review to a local wine. I know for a fact that there are a couple of local wines that I would have to give bad reviews to, because I’ve had them in the past. I’m avoiding those for right now, but I’m sure I’ll come across one eventually. I did have to slam a Texas wine in one of my early reviews, but nothing super local yet.
February 18, 2010 at 1:12 pm
It does hurt, doesn’t it? Another thing that sucks about giving a bad review to a local wine is you might run into the winemaker some day… and to them I’ll be that jackass who’s jumping out of a phone booth in his blog logo and slamming local wines.
February 18, 2010 at 12:50 pm
I know that it was painful to write, as well as drink, but you are actually doing a service to the winery. By pointing out the flaws in the labeling (not getting enough info to know it was non-vintage) and the quality of the product you are helping a local business understand where they are going wrong and how they can improve.
For example, if it was a result of pooled substandard crops, perhaps they could have sold it as a fun table wine instead of a $15 disappointment. It doesn’t sound as though much could save this one but there are merits of negative reviews.
February 18, 2010 at 1:14 pm
Thanks for that. I really think that’s what it was (or at least I’m hoping), a pool of substandard grapes. I wouldn’t have been so harsh if it weren’t so expensive and if it hadn’t been a featured wine on the front page. It gives a bad impression of the winery.
February 20, 2010 at 9:26 am
I agree, feed-back like this is doing a service… and I’m the winemaker.
The $19.99 Drink The Pink 2-pack was a play on the whole pink for Valentines.
The Rose is also not my favorite. It is a small, batch (hench the non-vintage labels) run to experiement with which grapes to use to make a dry rose, (which I do think if we could get consistantly right would work well with NC food.) This wine did take a bronze medal at the 2009 Mid-Atlantic Southeastern wine competition so maybe you got a bad bottle, but overall it’s too flat for my taste…the grapes needed more acid and should have been harvested earlier for a Rose. I’ve also been playing around with Cab Franc for a dry-Rose which I like better. I’ll also open a bottle of the current dry Rose’ and recheck it today at the winery.
The Jug House is actually one of our best sellers and took the Double Gold at the NC State Wine Competition. It is aimed squarely at the White Zin crowd.
My own personal tastes tend more toward the dry-Reds which is more of what Grove is known for. Email me your address and I’ll send you a bottle of the normal (vintage) Sangiovese to cleanse those tastebuds. If you do ever get a bad bottle of our wine, let us know and we’ll replace it.
February 20, 2010 at 10:18 am
I really appreciate you coming here and clearing it up. I would be ecstatic if all it was was a bad bottle. I also appreciate your offer, and I’ll take you up on it. Nothing would please me more than to be proven wrong on this matter.
It’s also very good of you to be kind after I was less than kind to your product. I’m not sure I would have the patience for someone like me!
February 20, 2010 at 10:37 am
Max, I think that it’s awesome that you handled the review the way that you did. You explained the story behind the wine, and even gave some of your own critique of the wine. As a consumer, I appreciate this kind of honesty and that you took the time to respond.
You show amazing grace and I think it’s great that you have engaged your customers in this way. Cheers to you!
February 20, 2010 at 11:08 am
I believe the Piedmont of NC has the possibility of becoming a world class food & wine region, but we’re young and still learning. Its a great time to be living here, watching this unfold.
Just like chefs at great restaurants, the best winemakers, cheese makers, farmers, etc. have to build a culture of welcoming criticism and learning from it. We can all get better…so keep the praise and jabs coming.
March 23, 2010 at 8:45 pm
@Max,
Great response and awesome to see you monitoring your brand. Thanks for keeping it real and not hitting @wineaccguy with a marketing blitz. I know I for one will be on the lookout for some dry-Reds from Grove.
February 18, 2010 at 2:03 pm
Yikes – sounds bad. I hope they give you an opportunity to redeem themselves. So far, I’ve yet to experience a horrible wine here locally, but I’ve only reviewed 6 of the 16 wineries. I dread the day that I encounter this. Kudos to you for having the courage to state your convictions and opinions (after all that is what wine reviewing is – right?).
DrinkHappy (at least the next time)
Josh
February 18, 2010 at 4:27 pm
Thanks, Josh. I want to give everyone a fair review, good or bad. It’s a lot easier to give a good review, of course… but sometimes it’s good to have a bad wine just to reaffirm the vast difference in the quality of wines out there, to validate the accolades you may lay on fantastic wines.
February 25, 2010 at 8:50 pm
[...] week, “The Occasional Risk of Buying Local” (or if you don’t, you can find it here), where I brought down some pretty heavy criticism on a Rosé from Grove Winery, a local vineyard. [...]
July 20, 2010 at 6:16 pm
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