Victor Hugo The Hunchback 2005

I am steadily drinking my way through my Christmas wine, and some of the bottles have proven to be quite good. Victor Hugo The Hunchback 2005 is a blended wine from Paso Robles. It is 50% Merlot, 20% Syrah, 15% Petit Verdot and 15% Cabernet Franc. The Cabernet Franc gives this wine an especially fragrant and appealling nose (why don't more winemakers use this varietal?), and Petit Verdot should add some stiffening to this wine, but it doesn't. This isn't a big wine; it is fairly light in color and medium-bodied. This isn't a detriment. This wine would accompany and compliment a wide-variety of foods. It is smooth and fruity, with a nice touch of tannic bitterness on the finish. It's also nice for sipping on its own. Decant this wine and give it about two hours of breathing time. This is really a nice wine, good but not great. It retails for about $15 a bottle, however, which is pretty steep for such an unpretentious bottle. Giving this one a 3/5 on my value scale.

Feudo di Santa Croce Prmitivo 2005

The wines of Apulia never fail to amaze me. They are big, bold, delicious and (for now, anyway) gloriously inexpensive. The Feudo di Santa Croce Primitivo 2005 is a wine from the Salento region. 2005 was a great vintage year in southern Italy. This wine is big, ripe and luscious, with a fragrant nose redolent of spice and fruit. It has a full, satisfying mouthfeel, unlike many Tuscan wines which are rather thin. The Primitivo grape is virtually the same as Zinfandel, but makes quite a different wine in its Italian incarnation. This wine is dark and is fairly bursting with fruit, but the fruit is balanced by adequate acidity, and just a touch of appealing bitterness in the long finish. This may be a hard wine to find, but look for it. It will be worth the effort. I give this wine a perfect 5/5 on my value scale.

Decent Washington Red

Another bottle I received as a Christmas gift, this one from my sister in Seattle. Townshend Vortex Red is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc. This wine is a bit rough around the edges, but mellows out a bit after it's allowed to breathe for an hour or two. Medium-bodied, not much nose, a distinct flavor of oak, but not complex and a bit one-dimensional. Not a bad wine, but nothing special. Might show better with food. I'd give this wine a 2.5/5 on my value scale. Worth trying.

Avoid These Spanish Wines

Every Christmas I receive many bottles as gifts, wines that range in quality from very good to awful. This year my brother-in-law gifted me with a bottle Osborne Solaz Merlot/Tempranillo 2005. The "Solaz" label produces many wines, all blends of various grape varieties. The wines have one thing in common: they are not good.

This particular bottle is one of the least objectionable of the many I've tried. It has a strange, bitter flavor followed by a sour cherry finish. It's not good, but it's drinkable. But I wouldn't pay the $8 - $10 price these wines command. I'd give this wine 1/2 star on my value scale.