This is my favorite red blend under $10.
REVIEW OF:
Playtime Red Blend, 2012
Lake County, California
$8.99 at ABC
Blends are a little bit scary.
Yes, some of the best wines in the world are blends — and pretty much all the Old World wines you can think of. But in the varietal-obsessed American market, a cheap blend is usually synonymous with trying to scrape together a profit out of the unusable dregs that didn’t end up in varietally-labelled bottles.
Or, you know, not-that-great, but if we put a cute label on it some college kid will buy it.
Good Red Blends
This blend, though. This blend is awesome. And it has some of my favorite packaging details ever (look at the top of the foil! Look at it!).
It was absolutely perfect to crack into last Friday, after some evening plans with friends got rained out. Bonus: no pants required.
One way to tell? It’s got a more specific appellation than “California,” which would mean its grapes could have been grown anywhere in the state — and that you’d have no idea when in the wine-making stage those different grapes or their resultant wines met up to become the blend in your glass.
This blend’s out of Lake County, CA — not a super-premium region, but just a few miles northwest of Napa, it’s not too shabby, either.
The bottle divulges some information about the grapes involved in this melange: we’ve got zinfandel, grenache, petite sirah and a versatile, aromatic Italian varietal called Barbera.
The resulting wine strikes a harmonious chord. It’s light up front, showing its Spanish and Italian charm with notes of raspberry, plum, vanilla and white pepper. But later, the zin follows through with a roundness and fullness of body that last into its medium-length finish. It’s got a velvety mouthfeel with just enough beautifully-incorporated tannin and acid to keep it interesting.
All cards on the table — I drank the whole thing.