Category Archives: wine

I’m not going to actually TASTE this stuff, but you need to know

about wine made out of — tent caterpillars.   A guy in Northland, MN, makes it, and it actually tastes pretty decent, reviewers said.  An excerpt from http://www.walterreeves.com/insects_animals/article.phtml?cat=21&id=469:

In a blind taste test — the reviewers were not informed what ingredients went into it before the tasting —

four local wine connoisseurs invited to taste the wine described it as dry, pale and crisp. They compared it to a pinot grigio or white bordeaux.

The comparison came before they were told exactly what went into the wine. Afterward, they joked that it was the best insect wine they’ve ever tasted. It’s . . .

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The Buttery Wine of the Zarafa Giraffe

Zarafa 2007 PinotageZarafa (South Africa)
2007 Pinotage
$4.99 @ Trader Joe’s

Pulao and I started to frequent Trader Joe’s last fall, and we’ve waited for the wine on the cheap God-send to stock a Pinotage ever since. This past Saturday we found it.

If you’ve never had a Pinotage, get to it! Two of our friends, dbay and Duodecad, introduced Pulao and I to the Pinotage varietal a year or so back. “This red wine tastes like butter,” they said. If that doesn’t sound good to you — well, . . .

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At the sign of the loon

At the sign of the loon

Smoking Loon 2005 Cabernet ($7.99 750 ml)

If you’re looking to impress your Three-Buck Chuck-swilling friends with your class at the next party, I’d recommend the Loon as definitely worth the extra bucks.  It’s a dark, opaque purple, concentrated drinking experience, an intriguing, well-balanced blend of potent flavors that can stand up against the spiciest food or the most charbroiled piece of carbon to come off the barbecue.  (Well, maybe not Indian hot, but pretty hot).  My dad recommended this wine, and it confirms my opinion of him as a highly intelligent man with . . .

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Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio

I think this post breaks many of the rules set up for the wine section. I’m not even quite sure how to post this in the wine section. But I’d like to alert 12apostrophe readers to a new type and style of wine Dbay and I discovered last night. Since I can’t find an official name for them, I’m going to the name the type of wine “The Volcanics.” Named so if only because it sounds better than ‘grapes of origin grown in high mineral content soil, such as those found near volcanic eruptions.’

The first and only experience I’ve had with such a . . .

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The Fine Wines of the Sick Rooster

Sick Chicken WineTrader Joe’s grocery store sells wines on the cheap. For the same price as a bottle of “Mad Dog” 20/20, or the dreaded Night Train Express, you can get wine made from real grapes, that won’t even make you go blind.

The most well-known is the Charles Shaw vineyard, called “two-buck-chuck” (or in Minneapolis, “three-buck-chuck,” since a bottle sells for $2.99 here). Chuck is actually made by Mr. Franzia, a California vintner-type person, well-known, at least to my college friends, as the man who brought us fine varietals like . . .

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