Coming At You Like a Dark Horse

As a wine writer I’m fortunate to have tasted many incredible wines including expensive bottles as well as rare and unavailable - most recently Bollinger 1914 Champagne, Dow 1970 Vintage Port, 1975 Georges de Latour, etc. But wine is not just for the elite, the few who can afford it (well, to be honest, some of it is), it is a beverage, an agricultural product that is meant to be consumed, which is why just over 90% of all wine is consumed the day it is purchased. The majority of wines are inexpensive and a small majority of those are inexpensive but really good for the price. Case in point – DarkHorse 2016 Rose’. Though mass produced, Dark Horse is a blend of 48% Grenache, 16% Barbera, 13% Pinot Gris, 12% Tempranillo, and 11% “other varieties,” and it offers strawberry, and plum, Bing cherry, with a wisp of smoked paprika, and lime meringue. It’s not a complex wine, but not all wines are meant to be complex, just like not every burger you get is the mist killer burger ever. So this summer, may you get to sample some cool wines you may not typically have the chance to do, but may you also find wines like Dark Horse, which can be in your stable of weekly wines to drink at home.

ORIGIN: California

PRICE: $9/ 750ML

ALCOHOL: 13.%

BOOZEHOUNDZ SCORE:  89 POINTS

Locations, Locations, Locations…Wine

Wine is a global affair, yet most wine production facilities/wineries, only make wine from one place – where they are located. Some have a few vineyards in say France and California, or something like that, (Paul Hobbs for example has vineyards in California and Argentina) but few wineries offer wines made by them from places across the globe in a single portfolio. Yes, it’s been done before, but with little success. But Locations Wine is finally getting it right.

Just after the 2010 harvest, Dave Phinney was at the Charles de Gaulle airport, lamenting how existing wine regulations were limiting his ability to make the kind of wine he wanted. He joked about possibilities, imagining what he could do if there were no rules. What if you could blend across French appellations? What if there were no rules. Standing at the airport a taxi pulled curbside and he noticed the very distinctive “F” sticker on the license plate. His mind exploded with thought and possibility. What if he could take this idea and do this not only in France, but also in Italy, Spain, and Portugal? Since great wine is made all over the world, what if you could produce a range of wines across all of the major wine regions of the world paying homage to each country? Enter Locations, with wines from California, France, Portugal, Texas, Italy, Spain, Argentina, Oregon, and Washington. Pretty impressive. I sampled through three of the wines – line priced at $19.99 - the Portuguese being my favorite of the three, though terrific quality with all of them.

The Italian, a blend of Negromaro and Nero d’ Avola offers black berry, brambleberry, pomegranate and cedar, bing cherry.

The Portugal blend of Touriga Nacional, Trincaderia, and Touriga Franca is full of black cherry, black berry, rhubarb, cassis, boysenberry and is earthy and vibrant.

The French Rosé, all Grenache, is strawberry, hibiscus, rose water and violets with a bold acidity, and that mineral/earthy quality that Grenache offers. Locations Wines is a capital idea that lets you travel the Big World of Wine.