Jacobs Creek Wine

[TexasRanger]

Firstly, I am not a conspiracy theorist, but a while back I bought a couple of bottles of jacobs creek, they have been on the shelf for a few months because I enjoy a wine they sell here by the box. Anyway, we ran out of wine and decided to drink the jacobs creek, it tasted like cheap french house wine and actually burned a bit going down. I am no expert but it tasted nothing like jacobs creek. Is there any possibility it is fake? Does that happen here? Just wondering.

[Gerald14]

I would think it is unlikely that they are fake,,,,,,,,,unlikely but possible. What is probably the problem is that the wine was stored in an non air-conditioned environment for a long time

[Suradit69]

If someone was going to go to the trouble to bottle and flog fake wine, for which they would presumably still need a supply of wine to substitute, it would hardly be worthwhile doing it with some cheap Australian wine. And in Thailand probably not worth it even with more expensive wine. Johnnie Walker Black Label maybe, but wine??

[transam]

Red or White. ?

[bigbamboo]

What makes you think anything could be fake in Thailand?

[Battybird]

i had a bad bottle of JC Rose couple of weeks ago, reckon it's bad storage here. It was from the wine shop next to Green Onion in Nathon and now it's shut - so serendipity!!

[smokie36]

Jacobs Creek is mass produced rubbish. Impossible to tell if its fake imho.

[Torrens54]

Jacobs Creek is a bottom-end wine, sells in Australia for about AUD$9.00 or so a bottle. They do have a so-called up-market wine, with I think a Black label, from memory I think it sells for around $18 a bottle.

I know it has been stocked in Thailand for quite a few years. At $9.00 a bottle in Australia it is a QUAFFING wine, about one step up from a Wine Carton. If of course it has been incorrectly stored here in Thailand where stockists "know all about wine" Ha,ha! what you got was probably the REAL THING but a bottle that had been left standing upright in a tin shack for the past couple of years.

Cheers!!!

[jbrain]

You mean the Jacobs Creek tasted even worse then boxed wine, which you seem to enjoy ?

[TexasRanger]

You mean the Jacobs Creek tasted even worse then boxed wine, which you seem to enjoy ?

yes, definitely, that's what was shocking.

[TexasRanger]

Red or White. ?

Red.

[TexasRanger]

Jacobs Creek is a bottom-end wine, sells in Australia for about AUD$9.00 or so a bottle. They do have a so-called up-market wine, with I think a Black label, from memory I think it sells for around $18 a bottle.

 

I know it has been stocked in Thailand for quite a few years. At $9.00 a bottle in Australia it is a QUAFFING wine, about one step up from a Wine Carton. If of course it has been incorrectly stored here in Thailand where stockists "know all about wine" Ha,ha! what you got was probably the REAL THING but a bottle that had been left standing upright in a tin shack for the past couple of years.

Cheers!!!

Yeah, I know it's not a top end wine but I have "quaffed" enough in the past that didn't taste that bad

[AyG]

Did you drink it at Thai room temperature? It might have been marginally more palatable if put in the fridge for an hour or so - take off some of the sharper edges and reduce the "jamminess" by bringing out the tannins in it.

[TexasRanger]

Did you drink it at Thai room temperature? It might have been marginally more palatable if put in the fridge for an hour or so - take off some of the sharper edges and reduce the "jamminess" by bringing out the tannins in it.

Drank it at air conditioned room temp, abour 25º

[joeaverage]

Jacobs creeek is rough at best, but certainly better than monctalir unless there have been storage issues.

It does however need a significant breathing time, or that first sip is a shocker

[craigt3365]

High heat can kill a wine in a matter of a few hours. I seriously doubt most wine here is transported properly. Central's grocery store has stickers on the bottles they guarantee were shipped properly. If you're not happy with the wine, return it and they'll replace it for you.

I'd never buy a bottle at the borders here. The bottles are stored out in the open and would be ruined, IMHO.

Sometimes, you do get a bad bottle. It happens.

Unfortunately, drinking wine here in Thailand is difficult due to the import taxes and duties.

http://wine.about.com/od/storingwines/a/storingwine.htm

[stoli]

To respond to several of these posts:

1) It is not necessarily the storing in a warm environment or a cold environment that destroys a wine if done gradually, it is taken it from a hot environment to a chiller and then back quickly. Sudden changes do change a wine, gradual not so much.

2) Jacobs Creek is like Franzia wine in the states, maker of boxed wines such as Two Buck Chuck, a cheap wine for $2 a bottle in California. They both prey on vineyards that were unable to sell their grapes. The vineyard turns their grapes into juice, and sits on it hoping to sell it. If they find they are just paying storage and no wineries want to buy the juice, Franzia in California, or Jacobs Creek in Australia, buy the juice at a very steep discount, and turn it into a wine. Since they are constantly buying juice sourced from different vineyards or even different climate zones it is rare, or almost impossible, for their wines to always taste the same. Since they are always called "red" or "white", these wines surely have different varitals in them depending on who they bought the juice from. They were probably picked at different sugar levels as well, requiring sugar to be added, which is illegal in California wines, but done elsewhere where a grape, because of weather conditions, can not stay on the vine until it has reached it's proper brix before harvest.

3) Like it or not, putting finished wine into a box is the best way to store a finished wine. Air is the biggest enemy of a finished wine, which is why an opened bottle starts to go bad. A boxed wine has an aluminum bag inside that deflates automatically as the wine is removed, not allowing any air to move into the bag. It is going to take at least another decade to convince the public this is true, so the selling of wines in a box is something the wineries are very afraid to do at this point. So, at this point, the cheapest wines are going into boxes, earning boxed wine a negative review.

4) Rule #1 of any wine, regardless of cost. If you like it, drink it and enjoy it. That is all that matters.

[AyG]

Did you drink it at Thai room temperature? It might have been marginally more palatable if put in the fridge for an hour or so - take off some of the sharper edges and reduce the "jamminess" by bringing out the tannins in it.

Drank it at air conditioned room temp, abour 25º

Really way too warm. The concept of drinking at room temperature comes from an age when European homes didn't have central heating - just a fire. 25 C would be way above room temperature, even by modern European standards. Try chilling it down to 18 C and it will taste better (but still not great). Personally, for a poor quality wine like this I'd take it down even further.

[lomatopo]

I suspect most Australian and New Zealand wine producers insist on temperature-controlled shipping, and even attempt to recruit regional distributors who can successfully manage the supply chain (stock rotation, local deliveries) while maintaining reasonable trans-shipment and storage temperatures. As the wine moves farther into the supply chain, unfortunately, things can go awry. Stock doesn't get rotated, temperature control - which requires significant costs - varies, wine sits in hot warehouses, and delivery trucks at 45 C cooking away, all of which results in bad bottles. Find a reputable supplier, expect to pay a premium, and stick with them.

[TexasRanger]

I guess it has probably cooked then, not that I intend to buy any more Jacob's creek anyway, I have 1 bottle left, think it wil be cooking wine.

There is a lot of snobbery about wine and especially wine boxes, but as I have found a decent wine that comss in a box I think i'll stick with that from now on.

[FarangTalk]

I buy all my wine in Cambodia these days. They have proper distributors that know how to store and consume wine. Not to mention the wine is very reasonably priced unlike Thailand.

In Phnom Penh there are some fantastic wine dealers; Red Apron and The Warehouse to name but two (both close to the intersection between St.19 and St. 240). All wines stored and shipped correctly and they have superb selections, both old world and new.