Over the Hump...Sort of

My apologies, Winereaders. I have a cold. The Winechild finally decided she wanted to share something with her daddy and gave me the head cold that she has been harboring for the last week or so. Needless to say I haven't been drinking much wine or wine related beverages (beer), but before my head felt like it was immersed in a bucket of murky water, I do recall drinking a notable wine that I felt compelled to share with you.

As some of you may recall, I set out on a quest to drink all 10 of the Food and Wine 10 Best for $10 or Less a few months ago. It was a tough gig but with the love and support of the Winelady, I set out on the challenge. Some have been duds. Some have been wonderful. Some, were just hard to find. Until now.

I was doing some "work" for my day job in upstate New York and seeing is I spent the better part of 4 years up there learning how to be a well-rounded thinker, I thought I would make a quick pitstop in the town I called home for 4 years, Saratoga Springs. The town has changed a lot since my college days and while some of the additions to town (Eddie Bauer and Borders Books) are a bit of an eyesore, some of the additions were truly an upgrade. One such upgrade was the wine annex of the fantastic specialty food store, Putnam Market. (sidebar...the store's tagline is great: "The Best Specialty Food Store Between Manhattan and Montreal") They had some great bottles here. (Mollydooker COL was represented to the fullest...I guess the residents of Saratoga didn't get the memo on how good this wine is).

Off in a corner, in small wooden box was a dozen or so bottles that peaked my interest. I couldn't figure out why or how I knew the name but when I saw the $9.99 price tag, the bells started ringing. It was the very Grenache/Shiraz by Aussie producer, d'Arnberg called The Stump Jump. And it was one of 2 bottles on the F&W list that I could not locate (it was also one of the wines that a fellow reader, the Pinot Princess, on my old site highly recommended). Of course, at the $9.99 price tag, 2 bottles miraculously fell into my shopping cart (along with a bottle of Mollydooker Two Left Feet), and off I went, back to NYC to unscrew the twist-off top and get a taste of a cheap wine with a big following. Here are my tasting notes (well, at least what I can remember of it pre-head cold funk).

Don't expect a huge fruit bomb type of wine like you'd get from a Mollydooker but I was impressed with how much fruit really is in this wine. The color is that inky black that you'd expect from an Aussie Grenache/Shiraz but then you taste it and realize that at $9.99 you aren't going to be blown away by this wine. What you will get is a lot of spice and very little tannins but it was a bit thin for my blood and didn't really have the complexity that I look for in wines. Granted, I was drinking this wine with some sushi and very spicy wasabi but since the weather is finally getting nicer here in the Northeast, I'm hoping to try it with some grilled meats in the not too distant future. Let's just hope I can actually breath by the time I get around to the other bottle.