Giving California a Chance

Posted 01/29/2008 at 10:32 AM by Carolyn

California is a beautiful place. In fact, San Francisco is the place on this earth where I feel most at home, so I’ve really got a thing for California. And, they make some great wines in their gorgeous wine country. But, for my price range, I find I have better luck in Australia (duh) and even France (now that I know how to read the labels!) than in California. It’s just so darn expensive to make wine there, because the land is so overpriced! To get an enjoyable wine, it seems that you’ve got to shell out a good deal more than I’m willing to pay for an everyday wine. But, tonight I am giving California a chance.

Two completely different wines will be my experiment this evening. One is a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc that I bought for about $12 at a nearby convenience store. The other is a bottle of Zinfandel that my roommate bought at a high end wine store because she liked the label. I think these are both pretty common methods for choosing wine, but not methods that necessarily offer good results. They are both “California” wines, which means that their grapes could be from anywhere in the state (as opposed to more specific regions like “Napa Valley” or single vineyards).

Although these wines are so completely different in flavor, they do have one thing in common: ridiculous text on their back labels. This is a little clip of what was written on the Sauvignon Blanc in tiny script:

“Up ahead, an unmistakable stand of redwoods marked our destination and reward—lunch beneath the giants with a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc to share. Guess some moments are best defined by hints of ripe citrus and melon, and a refreshing, crisp finish.”

I mean, honestly. Give me a break. The Zinfandel label is more verbose and less interesting, so I won’t even go in to that. This is something that bothers me about inexpensive wine. I do not want a story about how you came to find this miraculous bottle. I do not want a picture of a cute animal on the label (although something like 1 in 4 new wines feature cute animals on the label…yes, specifically cute). These are marketing ploys. We can all see through them. Let’s just have some actual information about the wine and maybe a couple tasting notes. California and Australia are probably the most guilty of this patronizing marketing, so I’m taking a queue from Stephen Colbert and putting California and Australia on notice. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Now, as for the wine itself. The Sauvignon Blanc was indeed crisp and refreshing with hints of citrus. It was perfectly fine. The Zinfandel, on the other hand, was ruined by too much alcohol. Wine can get up to 15% alcohol by volume before the yeast die from too much alcohol, and most wines hover around 12 or 13%. This Zinfandel had 14.5%! The flavors would have been big and fruity if they hadn’t been set off balance by alcohol. After we each had a glass of that, my roommate and I were feeling warm and giggly. We declared the Zinfandel to be good but completely impractical. And then we went to bed.

Okay, so what did I learn from my brief foray into inexpensive California wines? Well, I’ve reaffirmed my theories on not choosing wine based on convenience or a pretty label. I’ve also learned that it’s not a great idea to jump from old world wine to new world wine in one big, alcoholic leap. I do want to give California a chance, but I think I’m going to have to arrive there more gradually.

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