Trailer Park Wines

Shitty reviews of wines I drank recently because what the fuck else do I have to do

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Peller Estates Chardonnay

$7.99 at BCLDB

For the price, the Peller Estates chard a perfectly serviceable wine. Not my favourite chardonnay; it’s got such a light body it’s almost encroaching on Pinot Grigio country. Light in colour and weight, it’s got some crispy acidity up front and on the mid palate but not enough to make anyone stand up and take notice. If this wine has seen any oak, I can’t tell. Very subtle nose of apple and lemon.

OK let’s be real; this wine has almost no personality. If I HAD to attribute flavours to it, I’d say it’s got a bit of lemon and honeydew melon, but mostly it tastes like “generic white wine”.

People who are only pretending to like wine and don’t want to spend a lot of money will like this wine.

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2014 Cassini Pinot Noir

2014 Cassini Pinot Noir

 One of the things about not having any money and drinking fairly cheap wine is that I often forget that quality wines need time to breathe and decant. I tried to dive right into the 2014 Cassini Pinot Noir and it tasted like what it tastes like after you have a nosebleed in the back of your throat.

 After I gave it a little while, it was delicious. The color is a deep, rusty red, almost brownish wine. Pinot noirs are to other reds (like Cab Sauvs) as Dilton Doiley is to Moose (yeah, I’ve been watching Riverdale. So what?).  Pinot noirs are delicate and gentle. They can be playful or austere. The Cassini Pinot Noir is kind of like Holly Hunter in the piano; at first it seems like there’s nothing but rigidness and earthiness, but if you give it a chance and get to know it you’ll find layer upon layer of mystery. Rich flavors of strawberry, cherry and red plum in the nose and on the palate give way to a ghost whisper of tannins and a soft finish with strong notes of caramel and vanilla in this wine. Maybe even a tiny bit of smokiness. I find it’s rare to get a wine with vanilla flavors without all the accompanying oak but the Cassini Pinot noir pulls off both all the fresh fruit and rich creamy flavours all in one. That’s called complexity my darlings.

 Buy it and drink it but good god damn decant that shit!

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J. Lohr 2015 Riverstone Chardonnay

$22.99 at BCLDB

the BCLDB near my house has sent relief for a stressful week once again in the form of their merciful half-bottles of quality wine. I don’t know why I waited so long to try this wine; I wish I could get in a time machine, confront myself each and every time i’ve walked into that liquor store and given my own head a shake for not buying this wine every time. It’s fucking EPIC. 

Listen guys, if it were socially acceptable for me to just drink melted butter, I would. the J. Lohr Chardonnay is the next best thing. It’s creamy, rich, and melts in your mouth. White wine doesn’t get more full-bodied than this; if you want to know what I mean, go to a fancy restaurant with your friend. Have them order a glass of any pinot grigio, and you order an oaked chard. Feel how heavy the chardonnay feels on your tongue and then take a sip of your friend’s pinot grigio, which in comparison, is basically a hummingbird fart on your tongue compared to the melted gold that is the oaked chardonnay. 

The slight and balanced acidity up front is almost immediately countered by the rich, nutty and vanilla creaminess of the oak on the back of your tongue. To be honest with you, the fruit in this wine is basically just theoretical but I don’t mind. I WANT my fucking wine to taste like I’m drinking buttered popcorn and this chardonnay does. not. fail. Lesser oaked chards tend to fade after the first few sips but this rich balm of Gilead holds it’s own from sip to sip to sip. Fruit-wise, I GUESS I’m getting a bit of generic citrus and... ah fuck it, I don’t even care. I’m in it for the oak. I like it so much, I composed this haiku. THIS FUCKING WINE WAS SO GOOD IT INSPIRED ME TO WRITE POETRY. Enjoy. 

Soothing creamy balm

Spreads relief on this burned tongue

Worries melt away

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Carnivor Cabernet Sauvignon

$15.99 @ BCLDB

People who like to drink wine and then talk about it use all kinds of of funny words and I’m going to be one of those bitches right now when describing the Carnivor Cab Sauv: that shit is jammy. And by jammy, I mean that this wine is surprisingly not that much like a cab sauv. It’s kinda more like a merlot meets a red blend. Cabernet Sauvignon tends to have a powerfulness up front, a really fuzzy, pleasant, almost cozy mid-palate feeling, that gives way to a dry-as-shit tannin-y finish. The Carnivor cab sauv has almost none of those features, and to me that makes it a more versatile, entry-level cab sauv. 

When I say it’s jammy, what I mean is that it’s got a kind of sweet stickiness to it that cab sauvs don’t often have. They can come across a little harsh, but the Carnivor cab sauv is like that girl in a movie who acts really tough, like, Janeane Garofalo tough, but is sweet and sensitive underneath. It’s easy to drink, sweet for a regular old dry wine, and balanced. Not to mention price-wise it’s a bargain compared to many other US reds. A lot of red wines from California are just blended reds and somehow the Carnivor cab sauv pulls that off while being a single varietal! Kind of like how Linsday Lohan managed to be a nerd and a cool girl simultaneously in Mean Girls. Basically, the Linsday Lohan-meets-Lindsay-Lohan’s-wannabe-Janeane-Garofalo-friend in Mean Girls. 

You will like this wine if you like things that are good and not too expensive. Very, very purple.

PS I drank the 2014 but I was too lazy to find a picture of it so I put the 2012 up because it’s the first one I googled. YES IT MATTERS.

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Masi Campofiorin 2013

$20.99 @ BCLDB

I have recently discovered that the BC Liquor Store near my house carries a pretty fair selection of 375ml bottles of good-quality wine, which is great for me because i’m white trash who only ever has about $20 to my name. So $10 bottles of high end wine that give me about 2 glasses full on a work night is pretty much gonna keep me busy for the next 4-5 weeks, or at least until I power through the whole selection that they’ve got.

I got the Masi Campofiorin half-bottle for like $10. It’s a Ripasso. You don’t really need to know or understand what I’m talking about and I barely do but there’s some sort of fancy Italian style of making wines that involves a sex party between one kind of wine and the sloppy seconds of another wine that makes this kind of wine. Now you can sound cultured at your next dinner party. You’re welcome.

The Masi Campofiorin is some tasty shit. It’s dry AF, like most higher-quality wines, but it’s got complexity for days. It’s real juicy up front with some serious raisin-y flavours, cherries and... well, that’s it actually for fruit. Cherries cherries cherries, if cherries were dried and then like, smoked. The mid-palate has a surprising little burst of acidity and then finishes with some very manly tobacco and dare I say a little pencil box. This is wine for reading Kafka and Proust, none of that ‘cheap and cheerful’ shit. This is grown-up wine, y’all. Every sip gives a little something different. There’s a long lingering finish that’s real mouth-drying but the tannins are actually really soft. So even though your mouth kind of puckers up at the end, you’re not hating yourself and gasping for air 10 seconds later.

Italian wines: always dark, beautiful and existential.  

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Copper Moon - Moonlight Harvest Cabernet Sauvignon

$8.99 at BC Liquor Store

I never thought I’d find a cab sauv as bland and meaningless as most pinot grigios, but then I drank this wine. I didn’t even try; I drank it out of a mug. OUT OF A FUCKING MUG. WITH A HANDLE. 

You’ll get some black currant and black tea from this wine but it’s generally kind of watery and understated. Not a whole lot of nose, but maybe that’s because I I have a head cold. I’ll have to re-review this wine later.

 This wine probably the blandest and most inoffensive red wine I’ve drank. Definitely a good ‘training wheels’ or ‘beginner’ wine, but not really indicative of what good cabernet sauvignons have to offer. I’m a pretty passionate cab sauv drinker so I get a little more infuriated with every sip. What am I drinking here, some sort of merlot?!

Look; it’s not about how much the wine costs. You know who makes a great cheap-ass cab sauv? Jackson Triggs. They must put a gallon of white sugar in that shit but damn is it tasty. I recommend you skip this wine and reach for something with a little more zest. Go for a Chilean red instead. 

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Sandhill Pinot Gris

Let me remind you that I’m not a fan of pinot gris. Despite this, the Sandhill Pinot Gris has some stuff to offer. Not in the smell, mind you. It smells like nothing. Probably because most pinot gris tastes like nothing. 

Sandhill Pinot Gris, on the other hand, has acidity AF. When you sip it, something pretty weird happens. Unlike most acidic white wines, the acidity gets you in the mid-palate rather than right up front. What the hell am I talking about? Basically, imagine biting into a green apple. It’s like, a second AFTER you bite into it, there’s this mouth-watering freshness that’s almost too much to handle. 

I’m honestly telling you that drinking this pinot gris gave my mouth the same feeling that biting into a green apple did. The apple notes are off the hook and dominate any other flavor that might come to call. The label of the wine says that it has flavours of “melon, pineapple and lemon drop (what the fuck is a lemon drop?) but all I tasted was green apple, green apple and more green apple. That’s not a bad thing, but it was definitely a lot to handle. I shouldn’t complain though, because my usual complaint about pinot gris is exactly the opposite; that it’s flavourless. Upon drinking, I also noticed an unpleasant bitterness in the aftertaste that was really neither here nor there. 

I gave up on this wine, but a lack of any other wines forced me to keep drinking it the next day, and wow! it was a whole different wine. The oxidization and time in the fridge overnight really mellowed out that bitterness and acidity, revealing a whole new wine. I got honey notes, some of that melon, and a bit of a candy-like/rock sugar aftertaste (is that lemon drop? idk). 

Regardless, pinot gris still isn’t my cup of tea but Sandhill Pinot Gris is for your next-level pinot gris drinkers. This ain’t no basic bitch white wine. 

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Beaumont Harmony Pinot Noir Rose

Keep in mind that I’m reviewing wines as I drink them. This is #3 this week. Am I a wino?

If you could wife a winery, I’d wife Beaumont Wineries right up. I don’t know what they’re doing to their grapes up there, but their rosés get me FUCKED. UP. Like, wake-up-on-the-couch-the-next-morning, don’t-remember-going-to-bed fucked up. You underestimate a rosé because it looks so cute and innocent but they’re the devil in disguise. In the words of Hall & Oates, ‘she’s a maneater’. If I don’t finish this review, you’ll know why.

Beaumont makes a couple good rosés. Not a lot going on with the nose of the wine, pretty mellow. Don’t be fooled though; that bitch has as much acidity as any New Zealand Sauv Blanc. It’s off-dry (that means it’s a tiny bit sweet, not mouth-puckeringly dry) with a big flavour. You’ll taste cherry, strawberry and pink grapefruit. Definitely fruity AF. You get acid on the first taste, sweetness in the mid-palate and a dry, light finish. So tasty you won’t realize how hard it’s hitting you; approach with cautious zeal.

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Hess Select Cab Sauv North Coast 2013

$24.49 at BCLDB

Spending more than $20 on a bottle of wine is basically sacrilege for me, not because I don’t think good wine is worth paying for but because I’m broke-ass. Luckily, someone gifted me this more sophisticated wine. 

The nose on this wine is almost better than the wine itself; fruit-forward and light oak, as well as creamy vanilla comes through on the nose. The wine just SMELLS like fucking Christmas. As far as Cabernet Sauvignon goes, it’s really soft. When it first hits your mouth it’s got a really velvety soft mouthfeel, whereas the Cab Sauvs I’m used to drinking basically punch you in the mouth with their spicy tannins. I guess gentler, softer (ok but kinda grippy but kinda soft) tannins is what you get for your money. 

Don’t get me wrong, this wine is fucking tasty. If you’re not a fan of how strong full-bodied reds like shiraz and cab sauv are, this is a good red wine for you. It’s got all the super tasty red and black fruit flavours of plum and cherry, some superfuckingtasty oak and vanilla and just a wee bit of spiciness on the finish. Plus, if you don’t know shit about wine (like most people) this is a reputable winery that people will be impressed with, so it’s a good go-to if you don’t know what’s what. The tannins are so mellow and gentle that it just gives you a hint of tea, or some shit. Light acidity up front, light tannins on the finish, lots of fruit and softness in the middle. Is this a shy cab sauv or a bold pinot noir? shiiiiiiiiiit I probably should have wrote this before consuming like 2/3rd of the bottle.

tl;dr this wine is worth the money but not if you are the kind of person who drinks wine through a straw.

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Copper Moon - Moonlight Harvest Pinot Grigio