Amateur Wine Review 8: La Florencia

I deleted Amateur Wine Review 7 because it was not funny, although it did have a funny name.
This shit is bananas, mostly in the sense that I dislike bananas, but also in the sense that artificial banana is the flavour of amoxycillin.
Let me explain in brief. The bottle insists on red fruit aromas or some such, and delicate touches of this and that. All true; not noted, however, is the lingering taste of what I deduce is tannin flavoured cough syrup. I suspect it is a combination of the %14 percent alcohol and a fair amount of tannin, but this wine has a distinctly antiseptic finish. Other than that, it's lovely - so as long as you drink constantly and your mouth is never empty, you'll like this wine - chug away, my friends.
Rating: 2/La Florencia is for external use only. Avoid contact with eyes; if this happens, rinse thoroughly with a better wine. In case of accidental ingestion, seek professional assistance.

Amateur Wine Reviews 6!

Ladies! Gentlemen! People who do not associate with either group! It's amateur wine review time!
My roommate/good friend/arch-nemesis Misha just came back from Israel (it was some sort of enjewing expedition the contours of which I find perplexing despite my knowledge of various bruchas [sic]) and he knows me well - he brought me wine.
The wine is Sion Creek White, from the Golan winery, which is apparently Israel's crazy mega-corporation of winery. I wouldn't know, though, because every other word (besides those already recounted, such as the name) is in Hebrew.
What do I know about the wine? Well, it is pretty delicious. Off-dry, sort of - peary? I approve of it, and its minimalist thistle on the label. I mean, it's no castle or lion or lion riding a castle, but it's a start. Basically, I am giving this wine my endorsement. I mean, you're never going to see it, because is this wine available in Ontario? No. It's not. So I've now had a sublime, transcendent wine experience that none of you suckers ever will. This wine was stunning, it was like looking through a glass that contained the essence of divinity. It was like heaven, wrapped in nirvana. It excused anything Israel might ever do by its existence. Basically, I'm going to hype this wine so high that you travel all the way to Israel to try it, and then when you do and you say "Oh, this is merely quite good rather than revelatory as he had implied," I'll leap out from behind an olive tree and go Ha! You did this at great personal expense! I hope you didn't read this end part, or it will ruin my plan.
Review: 10000%! (This plays into the earlier deception)

Amateur Wine Reviews Volume 5: Lusitano

"Volume 5," you say? "What happened to the incredibly exciting volumes three and four?" Well, my poor hypothetical and in all likelihood non-existent reader, I didn't bother writing 3 and 4 because they were about white wine so, lets forget that. They tasted - I guess - white winy? Satisfactory!
But this one! This is a wine to excite. This is a wine to thrill - this is the wine of a horse named... lusitano.
For anything in this review to make sense, I need to reproduce, unabridged and the entire thing firmly (sic), the blurb from the back of the bottle.

This wine will remember you some Lusitano horse breed characteristics, of nobel temper, fervent but generous, docile and sufferer, of elevated taste and agile pacing, but smooth and of great comfort for the horseman. Taste it.

That's right! You've heard of Japlish, and possibly Spanglish, and of course Moldovlish; now you know Portuglish. Oh yeah, this wine is from Portugal. It is actually quite good. It's a little bit sweeter than I like - perhaps its Nobel temper makes it explode with flavour a bit too much? It has a fervent, yet generous, little bit of cinnamony taste? It's nice, quite smooth, and went well with both garlic and buffalo mozzarella, respectively in the manner of docile and suffer. So it meets all of my requirements.
However.
I would like to point out - I am not a horseman. I have seen horses. I have ridden a horse. It was a harrowing experience, one that scars me to this day and makes me twitch in fear at the sight of hay or swarms of flies around giant mammals. And as such, this wine failed to provide me with any great comfort. I have mixed feelings about this - obviously, I am not the target audience for this wine. I just feel that from a marketing standpoint, the horseman is not what I would consider a growing demographic. Also, checking on wikipedia, I see that among the features of the Lusitano horse that this wine failed to emulate were sloped croups; nor is it of the baroque type.
Therefore, I must reluctantly say that as a wine, this is a great success; but as an emulation of the Lusitano breed of horses, it is at best mixed in results.
Result:
For the wine: Taste it.
For the horse emulation: everything but the withers.

[Note: Another editor, who will remain nameless, recommended that I include the world "eqwine." Her puns will be disallowed from here on out - ed]

Wine Reviews Two: Is that all I do here?

I'm trying to get a read on the taste of this wine, but the situation is complicated by the excellent anise flavour I've got going right now. And every time I clear my palate to try and taste the wine, I eat another bite of this. The wine has a liquoricy nose, a slightly fennel-scented finish, and an all-sorts body?

Anyways, the wine is Le Bourgogne; Chanson Pere & Fils 2007. This strikes me as a pretentious choice of name. I will not bill myself as The Torontonian. Nor is our food Canada Food. In any case, I give the name a roundly negative review.
The label lacks also any pictures of castles, although a tiny lion does make up for that.





You may notice I haven't said anything about the wine yet, really. That's because it's sort of - winish? I mean, I know I'm no expert. Or really a beginner. But the dominant flavour here is, frankly, wine. It's nicely balanced, pleasantly tart and all, but I have to say the taste is that of some sort of red wine.
It's sort of like - it's like getting a B- on a paper that you didn't really try on? I mean, your expectations aren't really that crazy going in (mostly due to the lack of castle on the label) but you still can't help being disappointed even though it is completely, averagely satisfactory.

Final rating: I guess a B-? Is that applicable? It will have to stay after class.

Opinionated Amateur Reviews - LAN

Shit son, we have a blog?
I guess that means that I should - like you do- review whatever it is that I am eating or drinking at all times.
And what better place to start than with this lovely bottle of wine? LAN Rioja [capitalization in original] found its way into my kitchen today, and I couldn't be more pleased about it (this is rhetoric; I could, conceivably, be more pleased.) The 2004 "reserva," as they call it in, I presume Spain, is quite good; smooth, slightly sweet, enough tannicitivityness to keep me happy without feeling too tannic in the mouth. The label has a helpful maturation guide on the back, which satisfied my love for both red wine and graphs. Furthermore, the label has a lovely tiny castle on the front, which is cheerfully - I don't know, Moorish? The bottle is a good value (I guess? Declarative statements like that make me sound knowledgeable) at however some-odd teen dollars, so I recommend that you get a bottle and some friends for a - wait for it, wait for it - LAN party tonight.
LAN rating: quake 2/unreal tournament.