Where do I begin? Let’s start with the basics. This is a wine that should not be purchased, and really not even produced. It has a lot of things going against it: it claims to be a Pinot Noir even though it’s from France, and it sells for less than $5, which all the way around should warn any sensible person away. The exact circumstances of the purchase went like this: my sister and I were standing in World Market and I was ranting about “French” wine companies putting the varietal rather than the Appellation on the bottle, when we saw this fantastic example. “How can that possibly be good?” I asked. “Maybe it’s not too bad,” Lisa said. Oh was she ever wrong.

Even at $4, this wine is extremely overpriced. It doesn’t smell so bad, and doesn’t appear watered down, but the taste, in Lisa’s words, is “like a glass of water that something died in.” I’ll admit that this isn’t far from the truth. Bland, pallid, tasting of the cheapest of cheap wines, there is really nothing positive either of us can think to say about this wine.

Lisa summed it up best when she said, “you just can’t really drink this wine without making a face.” Truth.  Truth. You may be tempted, but please don’t be. You may say, “Oh, look at this wine from France – it’s even inexpensive.” I’m considering going back to the store and checking to see if misread the display – I think they should have paid me to take this one off their hands. If not, at least I know a good lawyer for pain and suffering. Now to find the address to Lorval’s legal department…

Score: Not even worth putting a number down.

It’s difficult to trust a Pinot Noir that costs less than $15, much less one that costs less than $9. None the less on Anna’s recommendation I bought a bottle of Mark West.

I certainly have no doubt that it’s possible to produce a good bottle of wine and sell it for less than $10. I do have questions, though, about whether it’s possible to produce a truly good Pinot Noir in that price range.  While the folks at Sebastiani do a pretty decent job on their (even cheaper) Pepperwood Grove line, it’s a wine lacking the character and class of something that generally goes for almost 4 times the price, and understandably so. But we’re here to talk about the Mark West.

Let me be very clear: this is not anywhere close to the best Pinot I’ve had. In fact, if I hadn’t read the label, I might have expected it to be some sort of a blended wine with some Merlot-like strain. Without a lot of fanfare let’s just agree that this is not a classic example of what a Pinot should be and move on to whether it’s worth drinking at all. The Mark West is fairly mild and unassuming, but there are a couple of flavors in there that are almost off – I might even call it a bit musty. There’s a faint hint of spice, and it does have a somewhat buttery consistency, though it does dry out quite a bit on the finish. Overall, I think I would have to say the best word to describe my experience was “underwhelming” – this just isn’t a wine I plan on buying again.

I don’t think I would have been disappointed with this wine for closer to 5 dollars, but especially given the superior quality of Pepperwood Grove for a few dollars cheaper, the Mark West isn’t one that I’d recommend.

Score: 78

Somehow, I managed to buy this bottle without actually realizing that it came from France. In my defense, it’s helpfully labeled with the type of grape in the wine as opposed to some obscure winemaking region that I could not care less about, and that threw me off a bit (and, additionally, it was a Thursday evening and I couldn’t really have been bothered to actually read the label fully). Would I have known, however, that I was being offered a bottle of French wine for less than $9, I likely would have been more suspicious.

Actually, let me rephrase that. By “I likely would have been more suspicious” I mean to say “I certainly would have bought something else.” Anything that comes that far for that cheap has to have been worth about $2.50 when it started, and I’m not sure I want any part of that.

At any rate, bought it was. And there is, I suppose, no reason to look back after that happens. Looking forward, the back of the bottle makes the typical unlikely promises of most options in this price range: “delicate black cherry,” “light plum,” “subtle notes of cinnamon” and a “soft, yet full body.” The initial smell, however, is quite one-dimensional and industrial – enough to call into question the bottle’s optimistic claims.

The final word, though, comes with drinking, and here things began to go better. There’s a disappointingly small amount of fruit in the initial taste, but certain spicy notes (even if they aren’t terribly well refined) at least keep things somewhat interesting. From there, things actually go up further – there really are some distinct flavors of black cherry in the aftertaste. There’s nothing else that is terribly notable, but the few quality dominant flavors mixed with a small collection of lesser ones actually make the end result rather decent.

It’s still nothing brilliant, but I would certainly say that you can do much worse for the price.

Score: 84