Santa Rita Reserva Merlot

I haven't done a wine review in a while, partially because I feel like I don't quite have the vocabulary down and partially because I feel pretentious doing them. But I'll do one anyway. I'm actually planning on taking a wine-tasting class downtown if I can get in at a place called Bin 36 in Chicago. I've actually seen their wines on the shelves, and been there before and I'm looking forward to it. I'm taking Wine 101.

So I don't think I've done too many reds because I prefer white, but I bought this Merlot recently and I thought it merited a review. It is actually a Chilean red wine. I highly recommend getting some of your wine, in particular red, from Chile or South Africa. They have the right soil for growing the grapes and because it's not Italy or France, the wines tend to be very reasonably priced for the value. This one I bought for $10.99. I don't think it's one you would find at the grocery store, but probably at a liquor store.

I have to say it wasn't anything super-special in taste. I can't recall that it had particular flavors that I marvelled at. However. It had barely any tannic taste to speak of (that pucker feeling you get in your mouth), wasn't bitter at all, and was very smooth. Considering the price, I thought it was quite good. It's definitely a red that you could serve at a dinner party or something without offending any guests. :) I quite liked it and will probably buy it again.

That's all for the review, but here's a story. I went with a friend of mine to a wine-tasting a few weeks ago. Her apartment is above the owner of the restaurant and she got free tickets. So, we went. There were probably 15 or so tables there and we decided to start with the white, then move on to the reds. Oddly, some of the people there (the ones showing the wine) agreed with us (most, actually) and some seem surprised we would split them up that way. When me and Mom went to Napa Valley that is how we were taught to taste the wines. Anyway, most of the people were very nice and did not expect us to be particularly sophisticated in our tastes. However, one of the guys, I believe his wines were from Greece, was so snobby! I tried to comment on how dry the Riesling was and he scoffed at me! Not openly really, but he didn't try to hide it either. And the real kicker was that his wines weren't even particularly good! So despite that, I ended up buying 4 bottles. Two of Madera, which is normally a dessert wine - very sweet, but one of the bottles I bought was dry and very good, and two of Gewurztraminer which are also sweet white wines. The Gewurztraminer (which is very close to a Riesling) are excellent! They are all wines that only sell to restaurants which is why I didn't review them. Unfortunately, me and Natalie were only able to get through the white wines before both of our stomachs couldn't take any more, so I sampled a few reds and then we left. But it was still very cool.