OK, so Wife is cooking a pasta dish with calamari, sweet peppers, a few flakes of dried chipotle chiles and chunks of lobster. "So what wine are we having with this fine meal?" asks Wife.
"Well, I've got this Montes Chardonnay from Chile," I reply. "Oh, jeez, I'm making lobster" Wife says, "and you've got a wine with a screw top? This better not be a big disappointment."
Luckily for the Husband, the wine was OK, not a triumph but certainly not a disappointment. Wife said it was crisp and spicy with grapy notes on the nose that reminded her of grappa. Husband agreed that the nose was quite fruity but not quite featuring the bite of grappa. We noted that the crispness was a function of how cold the wine was. The warmer it got, the rounder and softer it became and the more the butteriness and vanilla came forward.
On the whole, this wine is all about the fruit. The label talks about tropical fruit and we can see where they're coming from. To its credit, this wine doesn't overdue the oak and butter combination and remains crisp and food friendly. We paid just under $8 for this wine so it definitely falls into the cheap wine category. There are always occasions that call for a modest Chardonnay and this wine nicely fits the bill.
Value: 8 out of 10
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We are a typical suburban husband and wife with
two children, a dog and a cat. We also like good food and, not incidentally, good wine. It is no coincidence that we
met and fell in love over gourmet meals and fine bottles of wine. Wine tasting was one of our favorite activities.
There are two aspects to value. First, does the wine taste good? Cheap wine doesn't have to
taste cheap or nasty. Second, is it worth the money? Could we have found a similar tasting wine for a lot less money?
Could we have found much better tasting wine at the same price? These are subjective criteria but we'll give you our
opinion.
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