Review for week 27 - by John

Translating to "Vineyard of the Seven", rumours have spread indicating this wine was named for the seven members of the Real World Winers that were set out to review it this tuesday night. If anyone tells you it was named after the seven bodegas of the vineyard, or it's seven investors, they are lies...Listening to the audio, Ssezi detected that the people behind this wine were of French extraction and was correct in his assumption as all of the seven investors are french. Reviews were inconsistant for the most part, but we were pretty consistant in detecting the "hot" taste of this wine we felt was due to it's higher than average alcohol content. Some detected some dark and smoky overtones, and found the wine to include some character. Others like Ed, equated this wine to a combination of paint thinner and saw dust. Since Ed has been huffing paint thinner and "dust" again, do you really trust his opinion, he may say anything to get another fix...Most people were turned off by the high alcohol content this wine seemed to possess, but other alcoholics like Ssezi was unabashed about his love of the substance. This wine weighed in at about 16 dollars, but it didn't seem the price was much of a factor. It was the tastes of the wine that seemed to control whether we would each drink this wine again.

This wine came in at 25 dollars, and did not bring enough to the table to warrant the price tag. None of the winers would buy this wine again, although six out of seven would drink it if someone else offered them a glass. These results are a little suprising since the majority of the winers detected a sulfurous nose that was equated to the smell of "Hot Garbage". As if the cold garbage smell was not enough, someone had to toss it in the old radar range and warm it up for us...This wine included your standard Italian berry notes, and was a little sweet to some. Overall the wine was lacking and we were all left unimpressed.

If you listen to the audio clip from this review you will hear how our wine experts confidently beleive this wine to be a blend containing pinotage. Wrong! It is actually 96% Shiraz and 4% Viogneir. Regardless, we all pretty much agreed that this wine was a very good bargain for the money. This wine displayed some up front fruit flavors that were followed up with a slightly spicy finish. I myself detected some blackberry notes, and thought there was a slight tartness to it that I enjoyed quite a bit. The overall consensus was that this wine was very pleasant to drink. All of the winers except Bill decided they would buy this wine again for 16 dollars.

There is not a lot to be said about the Railroad Red. Yes, I know that rhymed. This wine had some fruit/cherry flavor, and tasted more like a chianti than a shiraz. We all thought it was lacking spice and finish, as well as complexity. It was drinkable, but nobody seemed enthused with this wine. It was only 10 dollars which normally lights up Steve's eyes, but not tonight. Steve did mention in the audio that he could drink this wine with no after-effects, but I was more interested in how he could tell the future. Chris equated this wine to tasting like a Ludens cough drop. I happen to like Ludens, but I still didn't really like this wine.

The Real World Winers were probably as mixed on this review as this blend of 50% Monastrell, 30% Shiraz, and 20% Cabernet itself. Ed originally stated that the wine tasted like cherry cough syrup and was not enjoying it at all. He later retracted his statements and thought it was drinkable, but I blame peer pressure for that. Ssezi was turned off by the sour cherry taste and re-iterated how much he does not like sour cherry wines. Rich stated that this wine was one of his favorites from the Jumilla region and along with Steve he was a drink and buy. They both thought the wine had some good depth and spice, and thought it was very enjoyable. Bill and myself would both drink it, and thought it was pleasant enough, but didn't think it was worth buying again.

The recording on this wine abruptly ended during one of Ssezi's 30 minute rants. It no doubtedly ran out of memory after listening to him for a few minutes, and likely missed another 20 to 25 minutes. I just think it's funy that the other reviewers were talking to a recorder that wasn't even recording...Luckily I have the notes from this review and they were not very favorable. For 28 dollars, this wine was no where near being bought again by any of us. It was described as having vanilla, mint, eucalyptus, and berry tastes. It was all over the map and wasn't balanced at all. It was still pleasant enough for most of us to drink if we weren't paying.

"We want the funk, give up that funk. We need the funk, gotta have that funk". This wine certainly gave up the funk this evening and perhaps we didn't want it as much as we thought we did. The nose on this wine was offensive and described as "musty coffee grounds" and a "rancid toe jam infested gym carpet". The taste didn't rate much better being described as something that "makes you want to shiver". The taste was also desribed as funky and earthy with not much of a finish. Ssezi came up with some other descriptive analogies, but all I could hear was the 9 "Ummm"s and 4 "Uhhhh"s followed by singing of "I like the funk...".