Monday, August 11, 2008

2005 Edition Maximilian Pinot Noir, Rheingau

Bought this German Pinot Noir at Trader Joe's for a few bucks. I've shied away from American Pinots because it seems like only bottles costing more than $40 are any good (thanks, Sideways!) and I'm always up for trying something new, especially if it's cheap, so a Pinot Noir from Germany sounded about right. Plus I've had some amazing finds at Trader Joe's in the under $10/import aisle, including some mind-blowing Italian wines for about $5, which I'll detail in later posts.

This wine, however, was not one of those finds. It's god awful stuff, actually. The nose is a super-sweet red grape scent. If you've ever been to a vineyard, and walked near the grapes, you know this smell. In the mouth, it tastes like some sort of diet-grape juice. Again, super-sweet, almost like sweetener, and a light version of grape juice, without the heft of real sugar, or added sugar, that you taste when you taste grape juice. Alcohol is low, less than 12%, if I recall, and it's just lacking completely from the glass. Normally, a low alcohol level is a plus in a world of super high alcohol content wines, but this one is too deflated.

After that bad experience, I put the bottle back on my wine rack and decided to try it again the next day. Still not any better. The profound sweetness was a tad turned down, but overall, the wine sucked. I drank another glass trying to convince myself that maybe there's more there than my initial impression, but I just couldn't find anything redeeming about it. Used it to make a wine sauce for chicken the third night, and that was ok.

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