Wine Tasting - Apothic Red Winemakers Blend

 

 

Name: Apothic Red Winemakers Blend

Variety: Zinfandel, Syrah, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon

Region: California

Country: USA

Year: 2020

Price: $11

Winery Review: There’s a new red wine that’s becoming a bit of a hit. But the wine writing fraternity are up in arms. It’s Apothic red, from California, and leading UK critic Tim Atkin has described it as ‘undrinkable’.

The problem? It’s sweet. It has 16.4 grams per litre of residual sugar. It certainly isn’t the first red wine to be sweetened up like this: over the last decade, residual sugar levels have been creeping up, and producers have found that regular punters quite like reds that are marketed as dry, but which taste a little sweet..

Wine Folly: pg. 292-294 Talks about the wines in this blend, and the Syrah helps with the berries, as well as the Zinfandel, which has the raspberry hints that I'm picking up on. I think that is were a lot of the flavors I was picking up on. I did use a proper sized glass this time, but I didn't decant it or know how long it was sitting out.

My Review: I found this wine to be much different from the other red wines I've tried, it lacked the fullness that I've come to expect from reds, and was extremely sweet. I haven't had a Moscato or Sangria, but I'd imagine that those are both similar to this wine, perhaps it's just toned down from those. It was still pleasant and a nice sipping wine, I didn't have any food with it so it didn't get pushed around like I expect it would if I had anything other than some salty chips. The label talks about blackberries, I thought I picked up on some raspberries. I picked up almost zero tannins, and there was minimal bite from the alcohol, and the vanilla mentioned I guess I could see, but I didn't notice much other than the sweetness. Not my favorite, but pleasant enough.