Last night we went to a new sushi restaurant that opened close by about four weeks ago. Everything about it was terrible. We haven't been drinking much at all of late but we decided to have a starter glass of Sauvignon Blanc. We knew it would be plonk but in fact it smelled and tasted of shoe polish, and Bob's glass was dirty so we sent it all away and stuck with water.
How were we so sure it would be plonk? Well, the alcohol page of the menu was a long list of 'cocktails' wherein item #1 was "Jack and coke" followed by about 29 other crap drinks. Underneath that was a category called Wines. It wasn't a list, just a sentence containing grape names that went: "Cab, Merlot, Zinfandel, Burgundy, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc." Yes it actually said Burgundy. WTF? Prices were shown as $15/glass and $40-60 for bottles, and unspecified as to which applied to which. These would appear to be cheap plonk that were stored poorly since this guy closed his last restaurant down south and opened this one.
We were no happier with the food. So we came home and consoled ourselves with:
2014 Ceritas Pinot Noir Costalina Sonoma Coast
Picked up in a mixed case from a charity auction at which the case had been contributed by a good friend so I trusted the contents.
This wine is at the end of its life. Nose is good but not classic pinot. Initial flavors of cherry and some perfumey dark berry sag into strawberry territory by the second glass with white pepper and major umami. And I mean MSG, not mushroom umami. In fact, when we took a sip of wine and then a sip of water, the water tasted bright and sweet because of it. Which was very pleasant but since when does mere wine do that to water the way adding MSG to your food would? Crazy. Drink up! Since that didn't go so well, we opened:
2022 Mulderbosch Sauvignon Blanc Western Cape
Outstanding, as before. White grapefruit, lemon fruit and lemongrass with unreal minerality. Best buy on the planet in an under-$15 bottle of white wine.