Our Daily Red Table Wine

Year: 2012
Price: $8.99


Mike says: Our Daily Red features the hand of God instilling life into man. Pretty lofty implication there wine. While the wine has failed to instill life into me, it has instilled an slightly inflated ego, relaxed my social anxiety and increased my confidence around the opposite sex. Hey baby, you come here often?

This wine also eases the pain of rejection.

Guest Blogger Lisa says: So remember that time when Jesus was at that wedding and they ran out of booze and he was all like "That shit is whack, ima go make my own shit you cheap bastards?"  And the head chef or whoever was like "Man, most people get people shit faced on the good stuff and then switch it out to the crap, but you got people shit faced on the crap and saved the good stuff for now, WAY TO SWITCH IT UP JESUS?"  Well I can  say that if Our Daily Red at all resembles Jesus's best efforts of yesteryore I'd be PISSED, and not on the wine.

Kristina says:  Yea though I walk through the aisle of discount wines, I fear no evil, for I have already had Our Daily Red and it is bad. The label boasts several times that this wine is "organic" and even "vegan friendly" (unlike that beef wine I was planning to pick up). I should have known something was up; "organic" and "cheap" are uncommon bedfellows.  Our Daily Red doesn't give any description of what flavors one is supposed to taste or what to pair it with, so let me fill in the blanks: Our Daily Red has sharp overtones of battery acid and a hint of acetone. It would pair well with Domino's pizza, or White Castle sliders.

Deliver us from evil.

Liberty School - 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon

Mike Says: I bought this wine because the wine store display purported that Liberty School received 90 wine points by the Wine Point Distribution Association, or something.  Liberty School is pleasantly tart with a nice finish, but 90 goddamn points? What the shit? When I drink 90 point wine I expect unparalleled euphoria, not mild enjoyment

Money has changed hands, there is no other explanation for a merely decent wine such as this to receive 90 mother fucking wine points. I've never been so outraged in all my life.

Speaking of money changing hands, slap about 12 bucks into the hands of the liquor store and they'll give you Liberty School wine.

Kristina Says: I'm not sure what Mike was expecting from 90 wine points, but I thought it was pretty good for the price. I mean really, a grade of 90 is only barely an A- and I feel this wine is a solid B+/A-. I think Mike needs to go back to Liberty School to relearn Liberty Math.

I would drink this wine again; I think it would pair well with Liberty Cabbage and Freedom Fries.

Rene Barbier Catalunya

Kristina Says: This $10 1.5 liter bottle of blended red wine was dubbed "Catalunya", a blend of Merlot and Tempranillo - a wine type I'd never heard of.  According to Wikipedia, Tempranillo gets its name from the diminutive form of the Spanish word "temprano" meaning "early."  I would not drink this wine early, though it did taste rather "fresh."  Initially purchased to make some wine-braised pork chops, it made a fine second wine after the first bottle of more drinkable wine was consumed.  I rate it the equal of Yellowtail or that wine with the penguin on the bottle, but detract one point for lack of cute animal on the label (a table and chair on the beach?  not cute).

John (guest wine critic #1 says): My first choice at the store (Chimney Rock Cabernet Sauvignon) had no price tag, and I thought we might get a sneaky bargain due to an unknowledgeable store. However a price check showed that it was 7.5 times the price of the wine we ended up with.  The phrase I would use to describe Rene Barbier's Catalunya is "Quantity over Quality."  However, we had no problems finishing off the whole bottle. This wine was not suck.

Mom (guest wine critic #2 says): While this wine claims to hail from ancient terroir, the taste could best be described as "young and raw" thus making the label's claim that it "would go well with pizza" completely apt.  Truly it is a combination of the old world and the new.  If you are looking  for a fresh young wine with robust tannins to accompany your Pizza Hut personal pan pizza, this wine's for you.

Santa Rita 120 Cabernet Sauvignon

Year: 2008
Country: Chile
Cost: $6.99

Mike Says: 120 Cabernet Sauvignon claims to honor 120 patriots who helped lead Chile to independence. I'm not sure if 7 dollar wine is the best way to honor someone. If I were to be honored I'd want to wine to be 50 bucks minimum. I'd be insulted if someone honored me with mere 7 dollar wine. That is an insult and I am insulted. If someone where to insult me so, I'd call them up and hold the phone to my nut sack. "Say hello to your mother, you cheap wine buying dickshit!"

By the way, the wine tastes fine. Especially for being so inexpensive.

Kristina Says: 120 is 17 times the cost of this wine, and that's normally the kind of ratio I'd steer away from in a beverage's cost-to-name ratio.  However, I'd say this wine is easily 1.75 times better (perhaps even twice as good) as the two-for-eight-dollar Gato Negro.  I'd go on about the glorious virtues of the 120 noble Chileans who bravely hid in a wine cellar to somehow free Chile from. . . I don't know who.  Apparently I need to go brush up on Chilean history, and drink another toast to those patriots.

Would buy again.

Paso Creek Cabernet Sauvignon

Year: 2008
Cost: $14.99


Mike says: Despite boasting the word creek in the name, the label is clearly a tree with an owl perched on a branch. This makes zero sense. I don't know what to believe in anymore.

Dadaist label aside Paso Creek is a pretty good wine. Simple and tart, it doesn't put on airs and walk around like it owns the place. What's that you say? That description doesn't make a lot of sense? We'll neither does a tree label on a wine name after a creek! Whoa!

When you're done recovering from your blown mind I'll turn things over to Kristina. I'm gonna go enjoy this wine.


Kristina says: This wine was selected via a rigorous screening process.  First qualification: I liked the label's graphic, a silhouette of an owl in a spooky tree.  Second qualification: upon further inspection, the graphic and name of the wine proved to be embossed or painted or something on there.  This overcame my initial objection to the price,  $4.99 over my intended wine expenditure.  I am glad it did, for this wine may have cost $14.99, but it easily tastes like $17.99 (which means in a restaurant it might set me back $35 or more).  Price aside, this is a solid cab; delicious on its own, or as the back label suggests, with "big food" (I assume this to be the opposite of things like baby corn, cocktail wieners, and those atrocious little hamburgers known as "sliders"). I bet it would taste awesome with one of those giant steaks which is free if you can finish it.

Glass Mountain 2003 Merlot

Mike Says: Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw rocks. People who live in glass houses built on a glass mountain probably shouldn't throw much of anything. Farting is probably a risky activity.

Glass mountain (the wine) didn't throw any rocks or fart in my mouth, so that's cool. Unfortunately the wine didn't do much of anything in my mouth. Things should do things in my mouth. Well most things should do things in my mouth, things like wine.

Glass mountain is inoffensive, but bland; like your grandmother before she drinks too much wine.

Kristina Says: As a child I thoroughly enjoyed the fairy tale "The Princess and the Glass Mountain" which involved a princess forced to sit atop a glass mountain and wait for a suitable suitor to be able to make his way to the top.  While she waited, she threw golden apples down the side of the mountain as gifts to the knight she liked the most, to entice him to keep trying.  I wish someone would toss me a golden apple to entice me to try this wine again.  Upon further reflection, the princess must have been lacking in either the looks or personality department, seeing as how she needed to bribe her potential husband just to keep him from giving up.  As for Glass Mountain The Wine, I no longer remember how many golden apples I shelled out for it, but would not drink again unless it was less than eight apples.

Carlo Rossi Founder's Oak Merlot

Carlo Rossi Founder's Oak. 
Year: Unknown. 
Cost: Free!

Kristina Says: Our first box-wine review to grace this blog, Carlo Rossi has already beat out some bargain-bin bottles by rating "inoffensive."  The box boasts that this is a "fruit-forward" wine.  I am not sure if that is a desirable quality, but I like the way "fruit-forward" sounds like a boardroom buzzword.  This wine is totally shifting some paradigms with a proactive fruit-forward agenda.  You could almost say it is thinking outside the box.  Almost.

I can definitely say I would consume this wine again, especially if it was once again offered to me for free out of the back of a truck.  I can also safely vouch for it as a good base for single-serve microwave spiced wine.

Mike Says: Melville. Bach. Rossi. These are the names we associate with the word "classic", and let me tell you. Rossi is a fucking classic. Although, Rossi is not so much a great American novel classic, Rossi is more of a getting black-out drunk and passing out in your neighbor's broken '72 El Camino classic. If you're too bourgeoisie to sleep in the backseat of a 40 year-old car, maybe Rossi isn't for you. Me? I have a date with a box.