Wine for the "Uneducated Palate"

[xylophone]

11 hours ago, Oink said:

That would suggest that the fruit juice is added before fermentation producing "White fruit Wine" (probably apple juice due to high sugar content), not afterwards as some post imply.

 

Interesting point "Oink" and one that I have tried to find the answer to, this by contacting Siam winery direct and also another winery in Australia, but they give out no information on this whatsoever and despite many emails I've never received a reply.

 

As "craigt3365" has mentioned, not only don't you know what fruit juice is added, you don't know how it is added/when it is added and indeed if it is pasteurised/treated or not.

 

I pretty well know the wine that "craigt3365" is referring to and have it on good authority that passion fruit juice is added to the white wine, whereas "berry fruits" juice is added to the red. For what it's worth, the so-called Australian version from this supplier is the best of the bunch, rather than the French version.

 

All the same, lack of disclosure AGAIN.

[xylophone]

On 8/5/2016 at 6:17 AM, craigt3365 said:

As has been pointed out, you don't know exactly what's been added as it's not clearly stated.  You have no idea what juice was used.  If it was real grape juice, it'd say so, right?  They are real sneaky also.  My wife bought a bottle of wine on the recommendation of a store employee.  Said France on the label, looked French.  But in small print, it says made and bottled in Vietnam, and fruit juice.  Terrible way to mislead consumers.

 

 

I may be wrong, but if you are talking about Wine Connection, then they do sell an Australian produced "everyday drinker" called Rooks Lane which doesn't have fruit juice added and retails at about 440 baht.

 

Luckily enough I can currently buy Wolf Blass Eaglehawk for 380 baht a bottle, however I do think this has been mislabelled/mispriced and won't be around for long!! A good everyday wine from Australia.

[craigt3365]

Ya gotta be careful with the cheaper wines.  Rooks lane is a fruit wine....

 

https://www.cellarmasters.com.au/red/shiraz/wine/rooks-lane-shiraz-2013-12-R9033

 

Quote

Made with fruit from the Red Cliffs region in Victoria, a Rook's Lane red will always delight, whether you're looking for an easy-drinking red to sip on with friends, or as a partner to a meal.

 

http://new.grabone.co.nz/wine-beer-spirits/shiraz-syrah/p/6x-rooks-lane-shiraz-3

 

Quote

Rook's Lane wines are easy drinking fruit forward varietals from the Murray Darling wine region in Victoria's North-West.

 

Would love to see a pic of the back label...

 

Wolf Blass is a great deal at 380!!!!

[xylophone]

I think you'll find that the reference to "fruit" in the description is really about grapes, especially where they can come from several different parcels of vines, and the terms "fruit forward", "berry fruits" and a particular fruit are often used in the descriptors of the wine.

 

I looked on the back of the wine bottle and it is produced and bottled in Australia and mentions nothing about fruit and nor does it have the dreaded term "Fruit Wine" included anywhere.

 

In addition, I think it is being sold so cheaply, quite possibly because its shelflife is now limited, because these sort of wines are really made for immediate drinking and this is a few years old.

[craigt3365]

Could be!  After getting a bit of deception from that French wine, I'm now quite careful!!!!

[topt]

1 hour ago, xylophone said:

 

I may be wrong, but if you are talking about Wine Connection, then they do sell an Australian produced "everyday drinker" called Rooks Lane which doesn't have fruit juice added and retails at about 440 baht.

 

Luckily enough I can currently buy Wolf Blass Eaglehawk for 380 baht a bottle, however I do think this has been mislabelled/mispriced and won't be around for long!! A good everyday wine from Australia.

As craig says that's a great price - is this mispricing in a chain or another clearout in Tesco Lotus? (I was recently able to pick up some Taras Unoaked Chardonnay at 180 baht a bottle from a Lotus store - even though the shelf edge price was 360 which in itself was a reduction from the normal 599 or so.

[xylophone]

4 hours ago, topt said:

As craig says that's a great price - is this mispricing in a chain or another clearout in Tesco Lotus? (I was recently able to pick up some Taras Unoaked Chardonnay at 180 baht a bottle from a Lotus store - even though the shelf edge price was 360 which in itself was a reduction from the normal 599 or so.

 

Where are you based topt?

[topt]

Just now, xylophone said:

 

Where are you based topt?

Pattaya - I think you are in Phuket?

[xylophone]

14 minutes ago, topt said:

Pattaya - I think you are in Phuket?

 

Yes that's right topt, but I'm afraid you don't have this particular store in Pattaya........sorry!!!!!

 

But, all is not lost, because I've noticed the "Vineyard" label wines in Tesco, which usually have a kangaroo on the labels, however sometimes this seems to be covered for some reason and I have tried one and they are not bad for an everyday drinker, and at 349 baht are certainly more than a match for the wines with fruit juice added.

 

To back this up I did a little research on them and found out that they were specifically launched in Thailand to be able to offer everyday drinking wines in competition to the ones with added fruit.

Edited August 9, 2016 by xylophone
More information added

[topt]

Unfortunately I don't think we will be seeing any examples from the article linked below here any time soon. However if you are in the UK then may be useful.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3760886/Bank-holiday-special-wine-box-good-bottle-Yes-says-critic-better-ll-stay-fresh-weeks.html?ITO=1490

 

What it does suggest is that at least in some places they are trying to upgrade the quality of boxes in general.

[xylophone]

2 hours ago, topt said:

Unfortunately I don't think we will be seeing any examples from the article linked below here any time soon. However if you are in the UK then may be useful.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3760886/Bank-holiday-special-wine-box-good-bottle-Yes-says-critic-better-ll-stay-fresh-weeks.html?ITO=1490

 

What it does suggest is that at least in some places they are trying to upgrade the quality of boxes in general.

 

Excellent topt, thanks for the link, it makes interesting reading......and we can live in hope!!

[craigt3365]

4 hours ago, topt said:

Unfortunately I don't think we will be seeing any examples from the article linked below here any time soon. However if you are in the UK then may be useful.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3760886/Bank-holiday-special-wine-box-good-bottle-Yes-says-critic-better-ll-stay-fresh-weeks.html?ITO=1490

 

What it does suggest is that at least in some places they are trying to upgrade the quality of boxes in general.

I'm all for box wine.  And wine with screw tops.  I don't keep bottles for more than a few months.  No need for cork.  Sadly, the box wines here are fruit wine. 

[partington]

Box wines that I've tried here, such as Berri Estate, are defined as "fruit wine " on the box, but simply tasting them tells you that they are quite definitely NOT mixtures of wine with raw fruit juice, and are in fact quite dry,  not bad at all for a budget wine.

 

"Fruit wine" means wine made from an initial fermentation mix of grapes and other berries. Instead of being fermented from pure grape juice, the finished wine is made by taking an initial mixture of grape juice with small amounts of the  juice of other berries through the entire wine making procedure. Just as the sugar in grape juice is used by yeast  to make alcohol , so removing most of the sweetness, so is the sugar from any juice of other fruits. Therefore "fruit wines" are not necessarily, or even commonly, sweet.

 

In fact elderberry is a common fruit that is used to add to an initial grape mix to add extra body and strength to wine that is made from a poor grape crop.  

 

E.G from winemaker mag https://winemakermag.com/841-elderberry-wine

"Sometimes referred to as the “Englishman’s grape,” the common elderberry has been used to make wine for hundreds — possibly thousands — of years. By themselves, elderberries make a rich, flavorful wine, but they have long been added to other fruit and berry wines, including grape, to add color, tannin and complexity. Indeed, over the years, several “scandals” occurred when commercial wineries were discovered to have adulterated their grape wines by adding elderberry to improve their color."

 

and honest food net http://honest-food.net/2012/08/19/elderberry-wine-recipe/

 

 "A fine wine has acidity, alcohol and tannin [...] the prime problems in fruit wines is lack of balance. Some fruits are too acidic. Some too sweet. A few are too tannic. Grapes are the fruit closest to achieving perfection all on their own, which is why they “won” in the great winemaking game of life.

Elderberries, as it happens, come very close to this as well. They have excellent tannin levels, wonderful color, and reasonable amounts of sugar and acid. [...] Other good wine fruits include: plums, blueberries, blackberries, huckleberries, apples and pears."

 

I think some of the confusion that "fruit wines" are sweet and awful mixtures of fully fermented grape wine and raw sweet fruit juice  comes from the existence here of "wine coolers" which ARE mixtures of wine with unfermented fruit juice, and the fact that some wines sold here are unpalatably sweet, on purpose, like those "kosher" wines.

 

 

 

[craigt3365]

I just got another box of that fruit wine that I originally thought was OK.  This one was terrible.  Seems there's no consistency?  Or maybe it was corked?

[xylophone]

7 minutes ago, craigt3365 said:

I just got another box of that fruit wine that I originally thought was OK.  This one was terrible.  Seems there's no consistency?  Or maybe it was corked?

 

More likely to be spoilt by virtue of heat/being stored incorrectly, and a few years ago when I was trying some of these out I had exactly the same thing and it was disgusting.

 

Usually when a wine is referred to as corked it is because the bleaching/sterilising process of the cork itself has produced a chemical called trichloroanisole and this permeates the wine not only giving it a peculiar smell, but a peculiar taste as well AND the sad thing is that you just cannot get it out of the wine, so any bottle I have like this, is tipped down the sink!

 

For the record, this is one of the reasons why the screw cap (Stelvin closure) has become so popular. At one time the wine producing communities worldwide railed against the high percentage of corks producing this chemical and one Italian producer reckoned that it had spoilt a huge percentage of his annual production and was suing his particular cork supplier.

 

The situation did improve with a new bleaching process, however I do believe the swing towards screw caps will continue and certainly back in good old NZ, screw caps are becoming the norm with one high-profile producer saying that he believes screw caps keep his particular white wine in better condition than cork.

[craigt3365]

Ahh...got ya!  So maybe I should have said the box got cooked! LOL

[xylophone]

5 hours ago, partington said:

Box wines that I've tried here, such as Berri Estate, are defined as "fruit wine " on the box, but simply tasting them tells you that they are quite definitely NOT mixtures of wine with raw fruit juice, and are in fact quite dry,  not bad at all for a budget wine.

 

"Fruit wine" means wine made from an initial fermentation mix of grapes and other berries. Instead of being fermented from pure grape juice, the finished wine is made by taking an initial mixture of grape juice with small amounts of the  juice of other berries through the entire wine making procedure. Just as the sugar in grape juice is used by yeast  to make alcohol , so removing most of the sweetness, so is the sugar from any juice of other fruits. Therefore "fruit wines" are not necessarily, or even commonly, sweet.

 

In fact elderberry is a common fruit that is used to add to an initial grape mix to add extra body and strength to wine that is made from a poor grape crop.  

 

E.G from winemaker mag https://winemakermag.com/841-elderberry-wine

"Sometimes referred to as the “Englishman’s grape,” the common elderberry has been used to make wine for hundreds — possibly thousands — of years. By themselves, elderberries make a rich, flavorful wine, but they have long been added to other fruit and berry wines, including grape, to add color, tannin and complexity. Indeed, over the years, several “scandals” occurred when commercial wineries were discovered to have adulterated their grape wines by adding elderberry to improve their color."

 

and honest food net http://honest-food.net/2012/08/19/elderberry-wine-recipe/

 

 "A fine wine has acidity, alcohol and tannin [...] the prime problems in fruit wines is lack of balance. Some fruits are too acidic. Some too sweet. A few are too tannic. Grapes are the fruit closest to achieving perfection all on their own, which is why they “won” in the great winemaking game of life.

Elderberries, as it happens, come very close to this as well. They have excellent tannin levels, wonderful color, and reasonable amounts of sugar and acid. [...] Other good wine fruits include: plums, blueberries, blackberries, huckleberries, apples and pears."

 

I think some of the confusion that "fruit wines" are sweet and awful mixtures of fully fermented grape wine and raw sweet fruit juice  comes from the existence here of "wine coolers" which ARE mixtures of wine with unfermented fruit juice, and the fact that some wines sold here are unpalatably sweet, on purpose, like those "kosher" wines.

 

 

 

 

Great info and thanks for that as I have struggled to find out the exact process utilised with these fruit wines, wondering whether the berrry fruit was added to the initial process and crushed with the grapes or whether the juice of the berry fruit was added and then fermented – – of course I never got an answer from Siam Winery when I enquired as to how the addition of the hibiscus fruit was undertaken.

 

Many of the Australian produced wines do clearly state that particular grapes are used and blended with fruit juice, so at least they are upfront about it.

 

As mentioned before, a couple of the wines sold by a wine/restaurant chain here are produced in Vietnam and the white wines have passion fruit juice added, whilst the red wines have "dark fruit" juice added, and to be honest they aren't all that bad.

 

Like you, I have tried Berri Estate red and it's an okay drinker.

 

I don't know that anyone on any of the threads pertaining to wine have actually stated that these wines are "sweet" however I may have missed a few comments like this?

 

I suppose having fruit juice added is a lot better than the small winemaker in Italy some years ago who was found guilty of adding "black plastic type material, from ground down umbrella handles" to enhance the colour of his wine. He got these umbrella handles from a friend of his who ran a small factory producing them and had an oversupply!!

 

Having said that, it has been rumoured for many years that juice from "dark fruits" has found its way into some insipid red wines (particularly in France) and it is well-known, although denied by the French, that wine from the southern provinces and North Africa often found its way into some of the better-known wines in poor vintages, in order to give them more backbone.

[partington]

4 hours ago, xylophone said:

 

Great info and thanks for that as I have struggled to find out the exact process utilised with these fruit wines, wondering whether the berrry fruit was added to the initial process and crushed with the grapes or whether the juice of the berry fruit was added and then fermented – – of course I never got an answer from Siam Winery when I enquired as to how the addition of the hibiscus fruit was undertaken.

 

Many of the Australian produced wines do clearly state that particular grapes are used and blended with fruit juice, so at least they are upfront about it.

 

As mentioned before, a couple of the wines sold by a wine/restaurant chain here are produced in Vietnam and the white wines have passion fruit juice added, whilst the red wines have "dark fruit" juice added, and to be honest they aren't all that bad.

 

Like you, I have tried Berri Estate red and it's an okay drinker.

 

I don't know that anyone on any of the threads pertaining to wine have actually stated that these wines are "sweet" however I may have missed a few comments like this?

 

I suppose having fruit juice added is a lot better than the small winemaker in Italy some years ago who was found guilty of adding "black plastic type material, from ground down umbrella handles" to enhance the colour of his wine. He got these umbrella handles from a friend of his who ran a small factory producing them and had an oversupply!!

 

Having said that, it has been rumoured for many years that juice from "dark fruits" has found its way into some insipid red wines (particularly in France) and it is well-known, although denied by the French, that wine from the southern provinces and North Africa often found its way into some of the better-known wines in poor vintages, in order to give them more backbone.

 

I may be thinking of another thread  about this subject  that came up a few years ago when talking about the supposed sweetness of fruit wines, and it may not actually be mentioned in this thread at all! Sorry about that .

 

I must say if you aren't a big wine connoisseur, but you occasionally crave some red wine, the Berri Estate box is really good value, occasionally appearing on special offer at 629B for the equivalent of three bottles, and I actually like it.

 

 

[partington]

I'm adding to this old topic because I find I'm wrong about SOME of the "fruit wines" on sale here.

 

As I was looking through some bottles on the shelf at Foodland I found a bottle, whose name I can't for the life of me remember, but looked like a typical "real wine" bottle. 

 

The label on this had a simply extraordinary list of ingredients :  "wine", sugar, fruit juice and aromatiser.

Of course I didn't buy this foul sounding liquid, but this clearly WAS a mixture of pre-made wine with sugar and raw fruit juice.

 

So beware, although the box wines mentioned above aren't like this, some bottles of "wine" here definitely are made up of this horrible list of ingredients.

[abab]

Another interesting topic:

 

 

[rohitsuk]

Like the OP I am no wine expert much less snob and I gave up drinking wine in Thailand  long ago because its price makes it such dreadfully poor value for my hard-earned money.  I abandoned Mont Claire et al as plainly unpleasant, even to my untutored palate. 

 

I recently returned from a trip to Hanoi where I bought a German sparkling wine at a supermarket for B250 which is about what it would have cost in the UK. Four of us drank it and agreed it was very pleasant and extremely drinkable.

 

Upon my return I noticed on the shelves of Big C a new, well to me anyway, addition: Mont Claire Brut sparkling white and rose for B389 about £9 and throwing caution to the wind I bought a bottle, mainly out of idle curiosity.

 

I have to tell you now ladies and gentlemen that my hopes that it might have been even faintly pleasant were dashed once I opened the bottle.  It is totally disgusting and without exception quite the worst wine or indeed drink of almost any kind that I have ever tasted.  Likening it to effervescent white vinegar would be a compliment, it was quite simply revolting.  I laboured on with the first glass foolishly thinking that it might somehow improve as the temperature rose slightly but in fact it became worse. Fearing it might damage the porcelain, I cast contents of glass and bottle down the outside drain.

 

Decades ago during my late-teen package deal holidays to Spain, I drank some pretty rough, cheap plonk and in the UK that infamous Austrian concoction Hirondelle, which examination revealed was let down with antifreeze.  None of that came anywhere near Mont Claire’s Brut sparkling white.  I award it the Gold Medal for utterly obnoxious. 

Edited November 11, 2017 by rohitsuk

[xylophone]

7 hours ago, rohitsuk said:

It is totally disgusting and without exception quite the worst wine or indeed drink of almost any kind that I have ever tasted.  Likening it to effervescent white vinegar would be a compliment, it was quite simply revolting.

Hmmm........ not a good experience and judging by your description it would be my opinion that rather than the wine being just simply poor, that it was actually off, this especially as you mention vinegar in your description, which is caused by the bacteria (acetobacter) getting into the wine and spoiling it.

 

Having said that I am not a fan of Montclair in any way, shape or form, for reasons I have noted on many threads about wine.

 

In addition, making a "champagne style" wine is a multistep process and is expensive, so other methods are used to create "sparkling" wine, some of which can be very good, however the cheapest of which involves just injecting carbon dioxide into the finished wine product. I don't know which method Siam winery used, but you can be assured that it was not the methode champenoise method, but certainly one of the less expensive ones, if not the cheapest!

[bleble]

On 11/11/2017 at 6:53 PM, xylophone said:

Hmmm........ not a good experience and judging by your description it would be my opinion that rather than the wine being just simply poor, that it was actually off, this especially as you mention vinegar in your description, which is caused by the bacteria (acetobacter) getting into the wine and spoiling it.

 

Having said that I am not a fan of Montclair in any way, shape or form, for reasons I have noted on many threads about wine.

 

In addition, making a "champagne style" wine is a multistep process and is expensive, so other methods are used to create "sparkling" wine, some of which can be very good, however the cheapest of which involves just injecting carbon dioxide into the finished wine product. I don't know which method Siam winery used, but you can be assured that it was not the methode champenoise method, but certainly one of the less expensive ones, if not the cheapest!

 

 

Which one ?

 

This 199 thb Charles Strong is acceptable for people used to drink sht montclair and acceptable marysol.

https://www.vivino.com/wineries/charles-strong/wines/central-ranges-reserve-classic-bin-991-9999

 

I find this Charles strong even better than Marysol.

 

Of course it's not real wine, but enough to get drunk with 1 bottle !

 

And it's even cheaper after tax increases !

 

 

 

[SidJames]

Tesco are doing a decent enough bottle of Gavi at 549THB in their 'finest' range

[xylophone]

Not sure what "Gavi" is but they have some good wines in their range.

 

I like the Montepulciano d'Abruzzo at 549 baht, plus the Late Bottled Vintage Port at 640b and keep meaning to try their Chateauneuf du Pape at around 1059b AND they seem to be increasing their range every time I look!!

[topt]

2 hours ago, xylophone said:

Not sure what "Gavi" is but they have some good wines in their range.

Not your type xylophone

Dry white from Italy - became quite popular in the UK some 10 years or so ago. Nothing to get excited about but an everyday basic wine - Gavi di Gavi better.

[topt]

3 hours ago, xylophone said:

Late Bottled Vintage Port at 640b

This is excellent value when you consider it is £10.50 in the UK. Very drinkable

I wish they had other £10 wines at that price here .............

 

[SidJames]

2 hours ago, topt said:

Not your type xylophone

Dry white from Italy - became quite popular in the UK some 10 years or so ago. Nothing to get excited about but an everyday basic wine - Gavi di Gavi better.

Love a gavi de gavi at that price but I'll defo be indulging in that LBV at that price.

Wine Connection have a good muscadet sur lie just in.

[Denim]

On 7/19/2016 at 4:10 PM, charliebadenhop said:

There is a nice red Aussie wine that Tesco sells, called Laughing Bird.

Comes in a very large bottle and is only B399. I have had people over for dinner and they said "Wow, nice wine, what is it."

Give it a try.

 

Yes....as cheap fruit wines go not too bad. Had it a few times when can't be bothered with Makro. 13.5 degrees too , so bang for your buck.

 

In keeping with the OPs quest for cheap wine for the self confessed proletarian palate I've just finished a 5 litre bottle of Italian Rosso fruit wine from Tesco for only 725 baht. No worse than celebration and a wee bit cheaper.

 

 

[jrjrjr]

On 7/18/2016 at 11:59 PM, patsfangr said:

I found one a couple of weeks ago. It comes from, of all places, Thailand!

The wine is from the KBH (Knight Black Horse) Winery. It's their Cabernet Sauvignon/Shiraz blend called Wolf II. It sells for 329 per bottle, and I really like the taste of it. I also find that it doesn't leave a bitter aftertaste, which some red wines do for me. Foodland, where I usually buy my liquor, doesn't carry it. I found it tonight at Big C Extra; but it's probably also available at other sources that carry Thai wines as well.

So, has anybody tried this wine? If not, and if, like me, you are able to enjoy a cheap wine that tastes good, I recommend that you give this a try; then tell us what you think.

 

 

hello, I tried this wine and find it quite special, tasting as California wine. I wonder what additives it is full of, but anyway, better to drink than most crap, for 300 thb only.

I found it at BigC but not all bigC seem to carry it ?

Anybody else has tried it ?