LabRat reporting in.
Golden ticket and Chardonnay arrived this afternoon. No cheese, no candy, no extras. Sigh. If only this would have happened with one of the more expensive reds!
HOWEVER,
Chilled bottle for several hours, waiting for wife to get home and lend her also untutored palate to the fray.
Then, while awaiting the 11 year olds to arrive for the evening goblin festivities, we decided to crack the bottle early to ease the stress and sneak a few tastes.
Wow! Lots of legs! As red wine drinkers, we don't usually waste our time looking at the whites we're served, but this guy has legs! We strained and strained to detect multiple fruits: pear was there, wife kept chanting "citrus, citric, citrus..." until I began to smell and taste it, too. No apple. Perhaps a scent of vanilla and definitely an initial attack of cream, which fades fast.
NO bitter aftertaste (like one of the other reviewers experienced). Light butter, I think I could taste just a hint of oak, but my wife maintains there was none in her glass. And she insisted she knows oak. Absolutely none! (I always defer, when she starts REALLY insisting..)
Both of us argued about a trifle acidic/initial tart taste, mellows a bit with the swish. Enough to keep it interesting but not overwhelming.
Refreshing, simple forward pear mellowing and fading and then also fading to a bit of tanginess. A residual very minor buttery afternote. But again, not overwhelming. Not a thin wine, but certainly not syrupy, a bit of 'heat' and none of the repugnant effervescent feelings I've experienced with cheap whites.
Thousands of times better than the typical house white foisted on us in many local St. Paul/Minneapolis restaurants and our private club over by the river, which the New Mexico delegation and Laura Bush stole from us for a few days during the RNC. No great loss.
At $7/bottle, this is a hell of a deal. Don't hesitate, even if you're not a white wine drinker, because it should be at minimum acceptable to your non-demanding friends who want white (making you happier to hoard the good reds for people who really appreciate them). Everyday drinkable, a bit tasty and inoffensive. A good safe wine my wife will gladly drink again.
Oops. Got carried away with the tasting. Just got back from the evening bonfire and found very little left in the fridge. We must have enjoyed it more than we realized!
Bottom line:
Much better than the 'everyday' whites served us by our parsimonious friends. Not a butter bomb or an oak blaster. I'm truly confused when I read some of the others' reviews here and the propaganda about this wine on a few of the other internet sites. We just didn't get the same intense flavors which we felt others interpreted as 'obnoxious.' But then, we're not that sophisticated when it comes to these things.
We liked it.
Edit: And for comparison: After this, if we find any more of the Woot Rock Hollow or (God Forbid!) the Elvis in our cellar, it's going down the drain. Why suffer if we can drink this stuff at $7?
2nd Edit: Weird note. This was one of the hardest corks to get out of a bottle I've fought in many a year. I've got one of those levered 'rabbit ears' devices which usually pulls a cork, natural or not, without a second thought. I seriously thought something glass or metal was going to break this time around! Never have had this much of a fight.
