DeRose Wine Tasting

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Delius restaurant hosted a wine tasting this evening. DeRose is a winery in the central coast of California near Hollister www.DEROSEWINERY.COM, They make wine from grapes sourced in California and also make wine in Argentina & Chile.

6 wines and passed appetizers for $25. Not a bad deal.

I have tasted DeRose wines before and they are all good especially with the price point.

Tonight we had :

Shark Nose Chardonnay - had a aroma of a Sau Blanc with the tropical fruit but had a very distinct green apple taste. A semi dry wine with great fruit. A very clean, nice, crisp wine. At $10 a bottle I bought a few. And we all know what I think about California Chardonnays.

Sur de los Andres Torrontes - an Argentinian wine. Another clean crisp wine but I preferred the Chardonnay.

Sur de los Andres Bonarda from Argentina. A good everyday drinking wine that would marry well with barbeque or pizza.

Sur de los Andres Malbec Reserva - This was a complex, well balanced wine.

DeRose Alchemy from Chile. A blend of Cab, Cab Franc, Syrah and Carmenere. The grapes for this wine are hand picked, berry by berry. Labor intensive so that is why it is made in Chile instead of California. This wine is not produced each year, only very good years and is aged 24 months in oak barrels before bottling. At $14 a bottle how can you not buy some, which I did.

Continental Cabernet - a blend of Cabernet Pfeffer, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon. What can I say. This wine won me over. At $15 a bottle it was a must have. I have paid a lot more for some wines and not have them hold a candle to this one. Good mouth feel, soft tannins, very approachable and a damm good wine. So obviously I bought some of this wine also and should have bought more that I did.

DeRose is a winery that we should all look at more closely. Its not a "cult, have to have it wine" but for the price point and the quality you get it is well worth a second and third look. And you will probably enjoy it more than that $80 must have to have wine that seems to turn out to be a bit overrated.