One of my favorite things to do is to walk through the wine section of our local Costco. They usually have some great wines at a really reasonable price. We tend to buy our “special occasion” bottles directly through our favorite wineries, but we get our every day wines at Costco. I love finding bottles at $10-$15 that are high quality and that drink like more expensive wines. I went there last week to pick up some groceries, and saw a couple of highly rated wines that I wanted to try.
2011 Poggio al Tufo Rompicollo-$11.95
I was very excited to try this wine, because it was a $12 with a 92 Wine Spectator Rating and ranked #31 in their Top 100 last year. I was also looking forward to it, because it is a Tuscan Sangiovese and Cabernet Blend, which sounded awesome. It was pretty disappointing, I have to say. It felt a little schizophrenic, like it can’t quite decide what it wants to be. The WS review should have been a clue to me-“presents a whiff of blackberry, bacon and ink”-an odd combination, and I have to say the wine tasted like that to me. I don’t typically like mixing ink with my bacon and blackberry. Call me crazy. It may just be my personal taste, but the combination of Sangiovese and Cab didn’t work well as a stand-alone wine. I think this would have been much better with short ribs or prime rib or pork tenderloin. It is an interesting mix of fruit and tannins (the “dryness” in a red), but didn’t really do much for me. Just my opinion.
87 points
2011 Gerard Bertrand Syrah-Grenache Languedoc-$9.99
I was excited to try this wine, because it was under $10 and received a 90 point score from Wine Spectator. I also wanted to buy one because it was a blend of two of my favorite every day wines-Syrah and Grenache. Some wines are better with food (see above), and some are just great to drink by themselves, or with cheese or chocolate. Syrah and Grenache are typically really good with or without food, so I was hopeful this was going to be a nice blend. It was! This is a really good wine for $10. It would be a great buy at $20 as well. It’s a nice, smooth mixture of fruity, spicy and smoky, all at once, with a very easy finish. This would be a fantastic wine to buy in bulk for a party.
92 points