Your worst nightmare?

[Jenise]

Saw this locally about an hour ago. Just *had* to come home and look it up: Jam Jar Sweet Shiraz!

http://www.stirlingfinewine.com/r/products/jam-jar-sweet-shiraz-2009?utm_source=Google&utm_medium=Feed

I guess it had to come to this, sooner or later.

Y'wanna be open minded, but this just sounds godawful.

I don't know: maybe it is enjoyable? It is likely to be better than some of its sweet red comptition:
http://www.hazlitt1852.com/index.cfm?me ... 5ad99eee1f
Red Cat has quite a following with a certain set of customers and sells briskly.

If Jam Jar sold for $50, and was made in an amphora in Slovenia using ambient yeast from a long lost local grape variety we might find it to be charming!

I don't know: maybe it is enjoyable? It is likely to be better than some of its sweet red comptition:
http://www.hazlitt1852.com/index.cfm?me ... 5ad99eee1f
Red Cat has quite a following with a certain set of customers and sells briskly.

If Jam Jar sold for $50, and was made in an amphora in Slovenia using ambient yeast from a long lost local grape variety we might find it to be charming!

\
I wouldn't!

Not quite my worst. There's no Zinfandel in it.... yet.

If in the market for sweet red wine at a super-reasonable price do not forget Manischewitz. Sweet, red, coarse, foxy, reminds you of cough syrup ... all that one could desire.

[David M. Bueker]

If Jam Jar sold for $50, and was made in an amphora in Slovenia using ambient yeast from a long lost local grape variety we might find it to be charming!

It would be "authentic" or "natural" and thus magically beyond criticism.

I got to taste this a couple of weeks ago at a southern hemisphere tasting. I think that it is playing on the popularity of wines like Menage a Trois red from Sutter Home and Apothic Red from Gallo. I don't know about the rest of the country but these seem to be doing quite well here. I guess I view them as red transition wines. Many of my customers who are just getting into red wine are buying these. I would say that Jam Jar is certainly not God Awful but it has a place.

Taking the title of this thread as a question rather than a statement.....(and I'm sure Hoke will love this)...my worst nightmare starts off as finding myself one evening with a dinner companion at Alain Ducasse's Louis XV in Monaco and there ordering a bottle of Chateau Lafite Rotshchild from a truly fine vintage. The sommelier approaches and, with just the right sensitive touch offers the label for my approval and then, on receiving my approval, with a deft twist of his wrist makes that horrible scrunching sound that is made when opening a bottle thas has been sealed under a screwcap.

Cold shivers run down my spine even on typing this.

Best
Rogov

[Jenise]

I got to taste this a couple of weeks ago at a southern hemisphere tasting. I think that it is playing on the popularity of wines like Menage a Trois red from Sutter Home and Apothic Red from Gallo.

Ugh--Menage a Trois. I see WAY too much of it around here from the AARP crowd who pick it up for about $5 a bottle when they're at Rite Aid getting their prescriptions filled.

[David M. Bueker]

Taking the title of this thread as a question rather than a statement.....(and I'm sure Hoke will love this)...my worst nightmare starts off as finding myself one evening with a dinner companion at Alain Ducasse's Louis XV in Monaco and there ordering a bottle of Chateau Lafite Rotshchild from a truly fine vintage. The sommelier approaches and, with just the right sensitive touch offers the label for my approval and then, on receiving my approval, with a deft twist of his wrist makes that horrible scrunching sound that is made when opening a bottle thas has been sealed under a screwcap.

Cold shivers run down my spine even on typing this.

Best
Rogov

Similar to mine, but in my nightmare it's my own bottle, and after the CORK is pulled and sample poured I hear myself utter one simple word: corked...

Not quite my worst. There's no Zinfandel in it.... yet.

Salil,
I take that as a challenge. The next time I see you, I'm gonna open a Zin for you that I think will even appeal to your Riesling-oriented palate.

Mark Lipton

The real challenge is in finding one that doesn't have Ridge or Lytton Springs on the label!

Taking the title of this thread as a question rather than a statement.....(and I'm sure Hoke will love this)...my worst nightmare starts off as finding myself one evening with a dinner companion at Alain Ducasse's Louis XV in Monaco and there ordering a bottle of Chateau Lafite Rotshchild from a truly fine vintage. The sommelier approaches and, with just the right sensitive touch offers the label for my approval and then, on receiving my approval, with a deft twist of his wrist makes that horrible scrunching sound that is made when opening a bottle thas has been sealed under a screwcap.

Cold shivers run down my spine even on typing this.

Best
Rogov

Similar to mine, but in my nightmare it's my own bottle, and after the CORK is pulled and sample poured I hear myself utter one simple word: corked...

I'm with you David, I've never had the experience with a Lafite but three other first growths or comparable wines on more than one occasion of the many years of drinking fine wines. Oh by the way my utterance is "OH FECES" CORKED".
Scrunch = annoyance, corked= disaster. I'm sorry Rogov, that's how I see it.

Taking the title of this thread as a question rather than a statement.....(and I'm sure Hoke will love this)...my worst nightmare starts off as finding myself one evening with a dinner companion at Alain Ducasse's Louis XV in Monaco and there ordering a bottle of Chateau Lafite Rotshchild from a truly fine vintage. The sommelier approaches and, with just the right sensitive touch offers the label for my approval and then, on receiving my approval, with a deft twist of his wrist makes that horrible scrunching sound that is made when opening a bottle thas has been sealed under a screwcap.

Cold shivers run down my spine even on typing this.

Best
Rogov

Similar to mine, but in my nightmare it's my own bottle, and after the CORK is pulled and sample poured I hear myself utter one simple word: corked...

Sorry, my nightmare picks up where yours leaves off. Because in mine it's a restaurant bottle but after I utter that word the sommelier then goes on to say "Monsieur is mistaken."

I think I might be rather relieved if it is corked. It would mean I would have a good excuse for not drinking it.

But seriously, why do we assume that a sweet red wine is bad? It is not possible to make a decent sweet red wine that costs a little less than Valpol Recioto?

Not a nightmare to my mind.

Port is red and sweet.

I get quite a lot of requests for recommendations for sweet red wines and the only one widely available here in UK is the Greek Mavrodaphne. That every supermarket chains stocks a Mavrodaphne suggests to me that there is a good market for sweet red wines.

There is also a market from people who don't like wine because it is 'bitter' or 'sharp' but who want to drink a daily glass a red wine for 'health reasons' -- sweet red suits them.

I remember Jam Jar being released. Not had it myself, but it joins a number of other South Africa sweet red wines. Fairview have long had two on their list: a sweet red Shiraz and a straw-wine "produced using the traditional vin de paille method" of which the wine maker says "fermentation on the skins adds tannin which helps to balance the sweetness".

I do recall having a dessert wine, a sweet red Zinfandel tho' I can't recall the maker.

I assume red wines are dry and that sweet wines will be white, but sweet reds aren't unknown.

There are certainly some very nice sweet reds. I've had a number of late harvest zins (for example) over the years that were quite delicious. Nonetheless, there's something about the name "Jam Jar" that conjures up images of a completely goopy and unbalanced confection. Like I said, one wants to keep an open mind, but....

Mine would be this: drinking a Lafite (replace with any great domain from anywhere) from (place great vintage here) then somehow or another I get so wasted that I wake up the next day knowing what I've drunk but being unable to remember what it tasted like.

I helped a friend move his wine cellar and he broke a bottle of '63 Fonseca. It spilled out all over the road.

That's my worst nightmare - breaking a bottle of DRC, Yquem, old port, First Growth, etc.