Wine.Woot : One Week, One Wine (SM)

Meridian Red - Four Pack
$44.99 + $5 shipping
Condition: red
Products:
2 2006 Limited Release Syrah
2 2007 Limited Release Sangiovese
CT links above

Winery Website

Meridian Vineyards on Facebook

Monday offer still available (St. Supéry Vineyards Élu) here:
http://wine.woot.com/monday

come on kansas......

Ratting only happens on some Mondays, right?

Time for more Poizin. :-D

Being a Rat on Poizin would have been the ultimate! ;-)

How good is this deal?

While these exact vintages of these exact wines do not appear to be available on the winery website, basing calculations on the price for previous vintages, this turns out to be an Incredible Deal (watch for an EWN alert later).

Click the link above for full discount details, links, prices, and all that.

Never tried a Meridian I liked.

I'm from San Luis Obispo (a little south of Paso) and I've had a fair bit of local wines. Wildhorse and Meridian are ranked pretty low on my list. I can walk down to the Chevron nearby and pick up a bottle of Meridian.

Mind you, I've only tried the $10 bottle sold at the gas station (where else am I going to go at 1am when I don't want to break in to my cellar?) but I just really didn't like it. Overly sweet and immature.

That being said, Central Coast wine is absolutely amazing. There are some pretty spectacular wineries out here. The one that comes to mind is J. Lohr. Absolutely fantastic Cab at a pretty decent price (my dad pays $15 from a distributor up in the Bay Area, I can find it at the local Costco for about $11).

For the price this probably isn't too bad of a deal, I'd probably wait a bit before I uncorked a bottle though.

Full disclosure: I'm 21, and have thus been drinking wine seriously for only a few years. However, wine has been my family's drink for as long as I can remember, I've got wine in my blood.

Having had the Sangiovese a couple months ago, I really liked it. Usually Meridian gets a bad rap because they produce a lot of jug wine. Jug wine is just that: cheap and in large quantities.
Their reserve stuff is actually very good. I've only bought it at the winery in Paso Robles and most of it was excellent.

The only bad thing I'll say is they're owned by Fosters. So if you're afraid of large multinational corporations squeezing out family owned operations, caveat emptor.

I'm in for one.

I like Syrah and Sangiovese generally speaking, and Nostrom0's comment pushed me over to the buy it side of the fence I was sitting on.

I like the price point and I like the varietal offering but I'm concerned about the wine inside. I'll need some convincing.

Snooth.com gave the Syrah a rating of 3 out of 5. No rating available though for the Sangiovese. I never met a red that I couldn't finish and 3 out of 5 is good enough for me at this price!

Nostrom0 wrote:
The only bad thing I'll say is they're owned by Fosters. So if you're afraid of large multinational corporations squeezing out family owned operations, caveat emptor.

Keep in mind:

Some of the best wine specifically, and best alcoholic beverages in general, are made under the umbrella of a large multinational corporation.

Acacia, makers of one of my favorite affordable Pinots, and Johnnie Walker are both under the Diageo umbrella.

Opus One, founded by Mondavi, is now owned by Constellation.

Penfolds, the quintessential Aussie wine brand, is in Fosters' portfolio.

First ship to MA in 50 years! I'm in even with less than positive comments so far....But my birthday coupon won't work Yum, I have been so very thirsty!

No Michigan.... I'm afraid- I'd heard the our lawmakers, while not addressing important matters like things dangling from the rear view mirror, had outlawed deliveries of wine by any third party, e.g.UPS, Fedex, etc.. Perhaps the effective date was Nov. 1? Perhaps I look for the worst possible situation and this is just a case of a winery not in sync w/a particular state? Sigh...

Is this Kosher?

airjesse123 wrote:Keep in mind:

Some of the best wine specifically, and best alcoholic beverages in general, are made under the umbrella of a large multinational corporation.

Acacia, makers of one of my favorite affordable Pinots, and Johnnie Walker are both under the Diageo umbrella.

Opus One, founded by Mondavi, is now owned by Constellation.

Penfolds, the quintessential Aussie wine brand, is in Fosters' portfolio.

Agree. This is a point I've been making for years: especially in the 'upper-middle' quality range, many of the large commercial wine businesses make wine that is very good to excellent objectively, and with a better QPR than many boutiques, especially fairly recently established boutique wineries.

These larger wineries can afford to hire first rate enologists and to insist on high quality fruit farmed the way they want it for their relatively smaller production premium wines. There may not be the 'love' or the hand-crafting in what they make, but there will usually be very experienced hands at all stages of the process, with a good idea of the house style they're aiming for, and the resources to do things right, and, when the juice isn't up to standards, to bulk it out.

Like many, I love small wineries like Corison, Iron Horse, and Wellington (alphabetical order not playing favorites here), but I can also appreciate what the larger wineries can do.

If it were entirely up to me, when one tasted wines, one would not know whether the winery was a one woman garage operation or a corporate factory. It's all about what ends up in the glass.

However, as much as I have had barrels of wine from the warm area around Paso Robles, Templeton and San Luis over the years (when I was at Santa Barbara in the '70s, we took our own jugs up to the local wineries for $2/gallon Zinfandel of surprising quality - because of family connections we usually got our wine out of the barrels in the back they kept for themselves, not the stuff they generally sold), this looks like a 'pass' for me on stylistic grounds.

airjesse123 wrote:Never tried a Meridian I liked.

Plus 10. or plus 100000000.

Every time I've bought it I got sucked in on a sale that seemed too good to be true. It's always too good to be true, the wine always sucked.

I never tried these exact ones though, so TIFWIW

And then there are those of us here in Ohio whose preferences are for the small independent labels for the simple reason that those are the only ones our state's convoluted laws will let us woot!

airjesse123 wrote:Keep in mind:

Some of the best wine specifically, and best alcoholic beverages in general, are made under the umbrella of a large multinational corporation.

Acacia, makers of one of my favorite affordable Pinots, and Johnnie Walker are both under the Diageo umbrella.

Opus One, founded by Mondavi, is now owned by Constellation.

Penfolds, the quintessential Aussie wine brand, is in Fosters' portfolio.

I understand Rosenblum is also now owned by Diageo.

This is OT I guess, but what do folks think of the Twisted Threesome being offered over at deals.woot? I've never tried (or even hear of) Viogneir & don't recall ever tasting a Rhone-style blend either.

ninaco wrote:This is OT I guess, but what do folks think of the Twisted Threesome being offered over at deals.woot? I've never tried (or even hear of) Viogneir & don't recall ever tasting a Rhone-style blend either.

There isn't really any commentary on it over there. I'd wait until later to find out more about it.

ninaco wrote:This is OT I guess, but what do folks think of the Twisted Threesome being offered over at deals.woot? I've never tried (or even hear of) Viogneir & don't recall ever tasting a Rhone-style blend either.

Sorry for not getting it, but where is the Twisted Oak deal?

Can't seem to find the 2006 syrah mentioned anywhere including Meridian's website. Any other information you can provide?

KristyWhite wrote:Sorry for not getting it, but where is the Twisted Oak deal?

The Twisted Oak Deal is here and is currently showing on deals.woot.com.

There are previous Twisted Oak offerings on wine.woot and there are several who love their wines. Check out the community in world of wine woot and head over the cyberpub if you want more details!

High alc% content= big turnoff,for me that is. Next.

I'm also on the fence about buying these Meridians. The price is tempting, but that seems to be about the only quality of this deal. I am eager to hear comments about the Twisted Oak threesome; they definitely sound like an interesting bunch for a good price. Am I the only one not allowed onto deals.woot.com? While I've spent $100's on woot in the past 2 years, I have yet to buy anything from wine.woot; is this why I'm being denied access?

Imagine4vr wrote: The Twisted Oak Deal is here and is currently showing on deals.woot.com.

It only shows for purple and black w00ters. Discrimination? You bet!

Lighter wrote:It only shows for purple and black w00ters. Discrimination? You bet!

See if this direct link to twisted oak will work.

http://www.twistedoak.com/threesome1

Lighter wrote:See if this direct link to twisted oak will work.

http://www.twistedoak.com/threesome1

That's the same link I posted.

Imagine4vr wrote:That's the same link I posted.

Sometimes an ugly looking link is more obvious. I'd guess through this day the link will be posted several times!!

sgoman5674 wrote:Is this Kosher?

No.

Try these sites for help.
http://www.kosherwinereview.com/


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boaz38 wrote:High alc% content= big turnoff,for me that is. Next.

I wouldn't call 14.5% high, necessarily, at least for Cali wine and especially for Paso Robles. Definitely higher than French Syrah or Italian Sangio typically would be, though.

I'm more concerned about the 100% new oak and high Brix (~27) on the Syrah. And yet it has 'only' 14.6% ABV and is essentially dry. There is some missing sugar in the equation. Stats suggest this will be ultra-ripe flavored with lots of oak in the picture.

TacoLove wrote:come on kansas......

No kidding. I was just getting used to most of the wines being able to be shipped to KS and now it's like Prohibition all over again. The UPS guy will think I died.

gcdyersb wrote:I wouldn't call 14.5% high, necessarily, at least for Cali wine and especially for Paso Robles. Definitely higher than French Syrah or Italian Sangio typically would be, though.

I'm more concerned about the 100% new oak and high Brix (~27) on the Syrah. And yet it has 'only' 14.6% ABV and is essentially dry. There is some missing sugar in the equation. Stats suggest this will be ultra-ripe flavored with lots of oak in the picture.

There are ways to reduce the alcohol in wine. Not saying it was done here, but sometimes when the numbers don't add up, it's a place to start looking for missing sugar/converted sugar....

I've never had a Meridian wine that I liked - even for a weekday evening, when nothing special was demanded. This syrah is somewhat tempting, but I would be surprised if the Sangiovese was worth the bottle it was poured into. Personally, I think I'll pass on this deal - and physically purchase two really good bottles of anything for the price of two maybe good bottles of Syrah and two bottles of something even potentially sketchier.

Folks,

Meridian produces plonk. Got it. But they even say so, in other words, in the description:

... readily available, entry level wine.... "simple wines"....

I understand there isn't a lot of love for what we see in the store. However this offering is for "Limited Release" wines that are claimed to be higher quality. Does anyone have experience with the limited release wines from Meridian to report?

Thanks!

Lighter wrote:It only shows for purple and black w00ters. Discrimination? You bet!

I am replying in large to see my color. I was able to click on the twistedoaks link, but deals.woot.com doesn't work for me....I try to login and it says I don't pass the ID check. But, I can still buy using the other link? Is it a woot purchase? There is no indication it is woot on the page, or in the url:

http://www.twistedoak.com/threesome1

So, what's the deal? The wine looks very interesting....

glennfuller0 wrote:I understand Rosenblum is also now owned by Diageo.

You would understand correct. Mmm. I love me some Rosenblum Zin. =D