Fat Monk wines are produced by the Villa San-Juliette Winery in Paso Robles. You may recall a review we did of the Villa San-Juliette Zinfandel earlier this year, when we shared the background of this winery which is owned by the producers of American Idol. Fat Monk is their bargain brand, although the prices aren’t […]
Yesterday, we reviewed the Godwin Family Vineyards 2004 Merlot and we found it to be quite impressive. “The wine does a nice job of mimicking a Pomerol, but with a traditional California style all it’s own”, is what I said of that wine. You can read more on the 2004, but it’s time to review […]
Occasionally here at Cheapwineratings.com we receive wines that don’t necessarily meet our criteria, meaning they’re not exactly “cheap”. But if we believe these wines may still represent a value to our consumers who may be looking for something a little more special, we’ll certainly pass on our perspective. So when Godwin Family Vineyards sent us […]
Continuing the theme of not-so-cheap wines this week, AND continuing our exploration of pinot noir tonight we’re revisiting a brand we love, X Winery. I know, it doesn’t sound too impartial when I introduce them as a brand we love. But we love them because they seem to be pretty darn consistent at producing tasty […]
OK, so we’ve been posting some reviews for bargain-priced merlot lately but how can we really know how these are measuring up if we don’t taste some higher-end pinot noir? Well, I’m not going to taste any really high-end pinots, but I’ve gotten a couple that are over our typical $20 price limit. And rather […]
One of the things I like about Irony, the wine producer that is, is that their approach to business is to not spend money on lavish estates and such but they keep their expenses focused on the production of the wine. The result is good value for us, the consumers. For a couple years I’ve […]
When one thinks of wine from New Zealand, sauvignon blanc is typically the first wine that comes to mind. I’ll raise my hand and say that I too am guilty of ignoring New Zealand wines, other than sauvignon blanc. But there’s no reason for this. They produce plenty of other great wines. But I guess […]
When I review European wines, I often find myself telling a story of several generations within a family carrying on a tradition of winemaking. But it’s not often that I have the same story to tell about an American wine producer. Concannon Vineyard, however, is one American producer with a long history. The vineyard was […]
The weather has started to turn to autumn here and that means it’s time to start drinking some pinot noir! Let’s start the pinot noir exploration with one from Chile. Five years ago, if you had offered me a Chilean pinot noir I probably would have reluctantly tried it without expecting much. But things are […]
As we wrote in our 2009 roundup of 15 Good Merlots Under $15, “merlot can be exciting and merlot can be exceptional”. I agree with this, but let me go on record here by saying I’m hard on merlot. Maybe it’s because I’ve tasted so many fat & jammy, cookie cutter examples that I’ve grown […]
