2009 Tell Tale Stubborn Red

This review is more for me than for any readers because the wine we had last night cannot be purchased anywhere. We had the 2009 Tell Tale Stubborn Red which is 100% Gamay (aka Beaujolais). The reason this cannot be purchased anywhere is because it was made in my dinning room. This was my first attempt at home winemaking and it turned out surprisingly potable, even tasty.

The grapes used for this wine were grown in France and I bought them as concentrate. That is they were already pressed into juice and I fermented the concentrate with some added water. After drinking the bottle last night there are only 24 bottles left (if you want to buy a case just give me a call).

Well, it is obviously a red wine, however, it is a light red. We drank it chilled with some pita and spicy hummus, and some chevre and crackers. I smelled the wine and I thought I smelled banana bread, but I've been driving for 3 days, so I may have been mistaken. I took a sip and it was light with no oak flavors. This is good, since I did not oak it at all (if I had tasted oak I would've been worried). During the process of making the wine I added potassium nitrate to kill any yeast that might still be fermenting. Adding this created carbon dioxide. I stirred the wine for about 20 minutes to dissipate the CO2, however, I suppose I didn't stir it enough, so there was a touch of carbonation in the wine, which I thought gave it a little something interesting.

The wine was not overly sweet, but it wasn't dry; I would call it damp. It did not make me pucker my lips like some of those wines that taste like candy, but it wasn't difficult to drink like very oakey and dry wines. By my calculations the wine is about 13% alcohol, but doesn't have any alcohol flavors. It is surprisingly balaced. I had 4 glasses of it and didn't wake up with a headache. All of this being said, the wine is nothing spectacular. This wine will not wow you. It is a good wine for summer relaxation, but definetly not an entertaining wine (although it will be considering that I made it myself). All in all, I would say this wine could be confused with a low-medium end commercial Gamay.

This wine receives 2.75 grapes out of 5.