NV Pepperwood Grove Big Green Box California Chardonnay

Boxes Still Suck

I’m trying, folks. Really, really trying.

I want to find boxed wine I like. I want to join the eco-friendly, cost-savvy, antiflavor elite-shunning Brave New World™ of alternative packaging. I’ve tried Octavins and cubes and boxes and little 500ml foil-lined wax paper “juice packs” and all kinds of stuff. It’s not selling me, and I’m not buying it.

So here we go. I tried again. I wanted badly to like this stuff. It comes in a 3L box! It costs $19, which is less than $5/bottle! It has some viognier in it!!

Fuck me, it just isn’t any good.

NV Pepperwood Grove Big Green Box California Chardonnay

NV Pepperwood Grove Big Green Box California Chardonnay

The 3L Big Green Box is pretty. It’s an obvious play towards the millennial generation, with its sans-serif fonts and almost Apple-like design aesthetic. Plus, I pretty much think all box wine efforts are, at least at some level, about wooing millennials.

The wine is non-vintage California juice, and made up of 88% chardonnay, 10% chenin blanc, and 2% viognier. It gives off a light golden glow in the glass. I don’t know if it’s the room I was in at the time, but it seemed almost iridescent. I’m praying I imagined that.

On the nose—and I’m not making this up now, this was my first impression, jotted into my invaluable Evernote account at the moment I first drank the wine—I get heat and feet. Alcohol sting, a musty gym locker odor, and not much you actually want from a chardonnay-focused wine.

The wine is medium-bodied, with a very short, acidic finish. There is something of a pear aroma on the palate, but in general, this reminds me of Welch’s white grape juice, with the nostril-stinging, throat-irritating burn of alcohol. Yum

Y’know what? On second thought, I don’t want to like boxed wine. I like glass bottles just fine, thank you.

Verdict: sub-70/100
Price Point: $4.25 (per bottle equivalent)

2008 Tallulah Como

Napa White Shows Off Less-Common French Grapes

I like white wine. I actually do. If you’re reading this, chances are decent that you yourself are a wine blogger, or at the least you’re kind of a wine nerd. So maybe you haven’t experienced, recently, the concept that so many people have in life, which is that they are either “white wine” drinkers or “red wine” drinkers.

Me, I’m a wino (and a discussion about “taking that term back” would be a worthy one, for another time).

While I once would have sworn up-and-down that red wine is the only wine for me, I have long ago now (or so it seems) accepted that good wine comes in many different—ahem—varieties.

Tropical Vacation Approved!

And this, dear readers, is the kind of white wine I get especially excited about.

First off, the varietal makeup here is not something you’re going to be particularly familiar with, as it’s predominantly a lesser-drunk-here-in-the-States Rhône Valley grape (marsanne), mixed with an only-slightly-more-common Rhône grape (viognier) and the Queen of White Wine (and of Burgundy), chardonnay.

More precisely, the 2008 Como from Tallulah Wines is Napa Valley juice, and 53% marsanne, 37% chardonnay, and 10% viognier.

So, what’s it like? Tasty. Tasty, tasty, tasty.

The wine is bright in the glass, and gives off a bright, sharp yellow-gold color. The nose starts off a bit predictable—featuring a pear note off the bat—then starts throwing you curve balls, as some light spices mix with ripe melon and apricot aromas.

The wine is medium-to-full bodied, which I found I expected due to its color and viscosity when swirled. The spice notes from the nose mix with a tropical cornucopia of citrus (mostly orange), pineapple, and cantaloupe.

The fuller-bodied nature of this wine keeps me from describing it as particularly “crisp,” but the tropical, melon-revolving aromas and flavors are so refreshing, that this still works wonders as a chilled summertime white.

Even if you’d never heard of marsanne.

Verdict: A-

Tallulah Wines

Tallulah Wines

2008 Don Carlo Chardonnay

From Washington? From Oregon? From The Columbia Valley

On the second day of the 2010 Wine Bloggers’ Conference in Walla Walla, WA, we got a bit of a geography lesson.

The local AVA, the Walla Walla Valley, crosses borders.

See, I’d always thought of the Walla Walla Valley AVA as “Washington wine.” Ditto for its parent region, the Columbia Valley AVA. Problem is, some of the grapes grown in the AVA are grown in Oregon.

As a Californian, this idea is wholly foreign. It’s like when an east coaster talks about driving for five hours and passing through a half-dozen (or more!) states. I live a 7-8 hour drive to Arizona, a 3+ hour drive to Nevada, and a 5-ish hour drive to Oregon. I wouldn’t even know how to get to Idaho from here.

But there it is, an AVA associated primarily with one state, that is nonetheless geographically part of a second.

We took a bus from the Marcus Whitman Hotel into the Land Of No Sales Tax, where I spent about 11 weeks of my collegiate career, and met Lori and Tim Kennedy, proprietors/vintners/viticulturists/etc. for Don Carlo Vineyards, named after Lori’s Italian immigrant grandfather.

These Oregonians are making some fine, fine wine in the name of one of Washington State’s largest AVAs.

The 2008 Don Carlo Chardonnay is a bright golden-yellow in the glass. It’s doesn’t look too heavy or dark, but certainly shows off more color than, say, a sauvignon blanc. The nose is bright and crisp, featuring primarily an apple note, along with a hint of green grass.

The wine is light-bodied and smooth, with enough buttery/oaky character to slake the thirst of those who love the more “traditional” New World chard, but also featuring the apple from the nose and a pleasant cantaloupe note for those who like something a bit crisper and more fruit-forward.

The wine feels just slightly kissed by oak, and should please fans of either style. A fine example of Oregon Chardonnay.

Verdict: B+

2008 Don Carlo Chardonnay

2008 Don Carlo Chardonnay