I’ve been trying new wines. Odd, I know, but I’ve been branching out. My most recent guilty purchase was a bottle of Yellow Tail’s Shiraz Grenache blend. Yellow Tail has a wider than usual variety of Shiraz blends, including Merlot and Cabernet, but the one that really caught my eye was the Grenache. We’ll pretend that it wasn’t because of the pink bottle, so as to not sound like Lisa. There were initially three things that drew me to this wine: 1) It’s an interesting mixture (80/20, by the way) that you don’t see from many other wineries 2) It wasn’t terribly expensive, so nothing wasted if it was awful and 3) It’s a Yellow Tail, which means there should be reasonable availability almost everywhere wine is sold. Was my curiosity to be rewarded?
Somewhat. The Shiraz / Grenache blend is interesting. It does have a rich fruity character that is certainly not a garden variety Shiraz, but I think it would be very hard to place Grenache as the second varietal. Behind the fruity surface lies a light sweetness and subtle spice that balance together nicely. As I’ve consumed the bottle over the course of a week, one thing that I continually notice, however, is that my last taste is just a bit … lacking. That’s not to say that the wine itself tastes bad, but just the overall impression I have when I’ve finished the bottle isn’t really anything like what I experienced while drinking it. Instead of wanting another glass, I’m left wanting something to wash down the slightly mysterious flavors that are left behind, rather than reaching for another glass to enjoy some more.
Even out of the bottle, this is a mediocre wine. It’s not awful, but it’s not great. At close to the $6 price point, there are better wines, but there are definitely worse ones as well. This does not suffer from the syndrome of many cheap wines we often discuss here – that is to say it does have flavor and is perfectly acceptable to drink. But sadly, I doubt it’s one I’ll ever buy again.
Score: 82