Snoqualmie 2007 Merlot

After a rough week, working six days in a row at the store, I needed a decent bottle of wine for our Saturday night. We were having buffalo tacos, it’s always a challenge to pair wine to Mexican flavors. I didn’t want a white wine or beer, which would probably have been more appropriate. As I walked through the aisles of our local wine shop, I felt inspired to buy a bottle of Snoqualmie 2007 Naked Merlot. I first tried this wine when our local Wine Club had a get together featuring Organic and Biodynamic wines. I bought it for that and then ended up not going and drinking it with my mom during a football game. We both enjoyed it. It is a nice, pleasant Merlot, not oaky, full of fresh fruit, cherry and berry flavors. I’m always all about the raspberry flavors.

Joy Anderson, Snoqualmie Vineyard’s winemaker, says her philosophy with the “Naked” series is to let the characteristics of the grape varietal shine through and she has definitely accomplished that with this vintage! At $10.00 a bottle, it is very drinkable and a bargain for an organic wine.

I’d give this wine four stars out of five. By the way, the March 2010 issue of Wine Enthusiast rated this wine: 87 points / Best Buy.

The search for a decent box wine

Last week we sold out of our Liliputian Winery 2006 "Fat Head Red" (a meritage of cabernet franc, merlot & pinot) and we haven't bottled our 2008 Zoe's Merlot yet. This leaves me with no relatively inexpensive reds to drink. What a dilemma! So began my search for an everyday red that is inexpensive and drinkable. This is probably an easier task for someone that lives in a major metropolitan are, as opposed to rural Western Colorado, like we do. My search last week started a TRI-R Liquors in Hotchkiss, CO owned by Tod Sabetke, a very knowledgeable wine drinker. He suggested that I try Badger Mountain's Pure Red, an organic red blend from Washington state with no added sulphites. I'm not usually a fan of organic wine (although there are notable exceptions!), despite owning a natural food store as well as a boutique winery. Let's face it, a lot of organic wine tastes like Gallo burgundy, dirty socks or worse. I'm also not usually a fan of most box wines, although they are improving in quality. However, based on Tod's recommendation I headed out of the store with a box of Pure Red. It cost me around $20.00. So the first thing I do when I get home is pull out my corkscrew, oops! As I struggled to open the box, all of our cats came to see what was going on, but they were unimpressed with the nose once I got it open and poured (tapped??) a glass. I was very pleasantly surprised with what I tasted! Pure red is very fruit forward, lots of raspberry and tart cherry, no oak, not a lot of nose or finish but heck, it came out of a box and cost the equivalent of $5.00 a bottle! I can't wait to pour it into an empty shiner and have our West Elk Winemakers Group taste it at our meeting next week. Should I confess it's out of a box?

Badger Mountain Pure Red: I would rate this wine 3 1/2 stars out of five. Not bad for a box wine.