Ari's Tasting- Balatonboglari Merlot

 Garamvari St. Donatus Estate Balatonboglari; the grape variety is Merlot, the country of origin and region is Hungary, the vintage year is a 2015 the price of the bottle was $5.99 at Trader Joes. I was invited over for dinner at a family friend's house. So, I decided to get a bottle of wine that I think would have been a good choice for everyone going. 

 I asked the woman working at the wine counter at Trader Joe's if she could point me in the direction of a sweeter red wine that is popular. I'm really glad that I asked instead of blindly grabbing a bottle of red wine. This did not disappoint me at all. I was able to drink it without trying to hide a bitter and dry flavor that I typically do not like. This was the perfect blend of sweetness to me. It wasn't overly sweet like drinking a Barefoot Reisling, those are a little too sweet to me. I got tastes of jams and berry flavors. If I had to identify a specific taste for me, it was strawberry, raspberry and blackberry. 

In the Wine Folly text, on page 116 they have descriptors of "Raspberry" and "Sugar Plum". I got hints of raspberry throughout drinking this wine and I believe this is why I favor it so much, it's one of my favorite fruits. Before we ate dinner, we had cheese and crackers along with raspberry jam and it was bringing out the sweetness in the wine even more for me. Brie cheese, raspberry jam and crackers will be my new favorite combination with this wine. I will definitely be buying more of it. I'm pleased with it since it was so cheap. 

Once we had dinner, I will admit the taste changed a little bit for me it did become slightly sour but nothing too extreme. We had tenderloin, green beans and scalloped potatoes. I will need to pair it with a different meal the next time I have it and see if and how the flavor changes for me. 

 

Ari's Tasting- Boom Boom Syrah

 Boom Boom; the grapes in this bottle were Syrah, country of origin is from the United States and the region of origin is the Columbia Valley in Washington State. The vintage year is 2019 and a glass at the restaurant Fields was about $12. 

I got a glass of this wine at a restaurant called Fields. I had it with charred oysters and it changed the flavors of the wine for me. At first it was a bit too dry for my liking, but the food helped subside that feeling for me. I did ask for a semi-sweet wine and this was the closest they could get for me. 

On page 148 of Wine Folly, it does state that there are "black pepper" tastes in Syrah. I will say that when I drank this wine, I got a peppery taste in the back of my throat as an after taste. I did not originally identify it as a black pepper, but I now can see that it could be that. I was originally thinking more of a spicy pepper. 

Throughout drinking this wine, it was a little bit bitter, and I tend to link bitter and dry with one another. I think this is why this wasn't my favorite wine to drink, so I'm glad I only tried a glass. But as I said before the oysters helped take this bitter "dark chocolate" flavor as described on page 148 of Wine Folly, away. Once I started eating with it, I began to get a tiny bit of a sweet aroma, but since it had a thicker body to it, I still wasn't enjoying it very much. 

From now on, I can try to avoid Syrah's since I now know I'm not a fan of the bitters in the dark chocolate and the aftertaste of pepper along with a thicker body. Maybe it would be different if it was thinner and lighter because it would have been easier to swallow for myself. When my palate changes in the future, maybe I will enjoy this wine, but for now not so much.