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Wait!  Stop!  Don’t open that bottle!  This stuff needs a lot more time!

I promised myself awhile back that I’d adopt my mother’s mantra before writing reviews for my site:  “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”  After feeling horrible about a certain tequila review I wrote awhile back, I simply decided that I’d only write about stuff I liked here.  Stuff I hated simply wouldn’t make it on this site.  As Willie would say, Acc-cen-tuate the positive, eee-lim-inate the negative…   I figured it would be easy since, as you may know already, if it has alcohol in it then there’s a good chance I’m going to find some sort of redeeming quality to rave about.

I’m going to do my best to do that here, in this forthcoming review.

OK, so.  Let me preface the forthcoming review with the forthcoming forward:

Forward

I am a complete idiot and have no real qualifications whatsoever.  If you’ve read my reviews in the past, bought something I liked and subsequently liked it yourself, then there’s my one-and-only qualification.  Fortunately, for my credibility’s sake, a lot of people have done just that.

Chapter 1

This wine, right now,  is fifty bucks worth of Suck.

Chapter 2

Ok, so I got that off my chest.  Now, here’s some backstory:

I just bought 4 bottles worth of this stuff.  I always buy at least 4 bottles when I want to try a new wine.  Usually, that works out fine, because, as I just said, I generally like the things I drink.  So when the wine arrives in my cellar (read garage), I drink one right away to see how it is, how it’s structured, whether it’s worth the shelf space in my cellar or whether I’d be better off just drinking it right away.  If it’s one I like a lot, then I’ve got 3 more– one to share with my brothers-in-law next time I see them and 2 more to lay up for later.

The first bottle of Swan I cracked open was corked.  Musty old newspaper mixed with sweatsocks and a moldy blow-by fart.  Not a good start.  So there’s half a c-note in the toilet.

So I cracked another one and came to this conclusion:  Yes, the first one was corked, but it also just sorta sucked to begin with.

Now, let me define my version of “sucked” as it stands today:  “sucked”, from where I sit right now with $100 worth of wine in front of me, means that I went and cracked open a $20 bottle of J Vineyards Pinot instead of finishing both of these $50 Swans, just so I’d have something pleasant that I can drink right now.

Note the use of italics above.  I said right now.  Meaning right now has some measure of import.  That would be because I have a feeling this stuff is going to be outlandishly good a few years from now.  It’s just that right now at this very moment it’s tigher than a catholic choirboy’s asshole.  I mean tight.  I mean so tight that a nimble fingered priest couldn’t even get a KY Jelly-smothered pinky finger in there.

People often say things like the following when reviewing wine:

Generous amounts of raspberry and cherry fruit which lead into expressions of cola, spice, cedar and damp earth…

You know what I get from this glass of Swan?  Grapes.  Tart, sour, tannic grapes.  That’s about it.  It’s got virtually nothing up front– no nose, none of that classic Russian River cola and spice.   Take the grape juice they used to serve in church, add a twist of unripe lemon and chug.  Tart doesn’t really adequately describe it.  Puckered butthole in the desert might come closer to the mark.

Pinots, by my reckoning, usually drink pretty well when new.  In fact, I love that crisp, clear nose you get off of a really good new Pinot.  This stuff is so tannic and obnoxious now that it’s got to be good later.  It’s structured like a classic Cab, not a Pinot.  I can see this wine opening up and becoming drinkable in 3 years.  Becoming outstanding in 7.  One thing is certain for sure:  don’t drink it now.  Save it until it mellows out.

As much as I’ve bashed this stuff tonight, I have to say that I’m going to keep the other 2 bottles in the cellar and withhold any kind of score or further judgement for another 5 years.

(4 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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