Did some bottom feeding at TraderJoe's on Sat & tried:
1. Florian GrunerVeltliner Pannon/Hungary (12.0%; LattitudeWines/Danville) Weinkellerei Hechtsheim/Mainz 2019: Med.light yellow color; light citric/lemony light GV/peppery/bit floral somewhat earthy/bit coarse nose; soft off-dry (says "dry" on the label; 0.5%-0.7% r.s.) light citric/lemony bit earthy very quiet GV/floral slight metallic/tangy pleasant if simple flavor; med.short off-dry bit soft light weight floral/GV/earthy rather simple finish; a pleasant bit simple white that speaks of GV w/ a whisper. $7.00 (TJ)
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2. Weights & Measures Syrah EdnaVlly/Calif (15.4%; "hand selected barrel from one of EdnaVlly's most highly regarded producers") MorganHill 2018: Rather dark color; strong blackberry/Syrah/boysenberry/ripe/spicy some c-c/black pepper/bit cinammon light toasty/oak quite attractive lovely ripe Syrah nose; lightly tart bit hard/angular fairly rich/lush/tangy some ripe blackberry/Syrah/boysenberry/spicy light toasty/oak light c-c/peppery quite attractive flavor w/ light ripe/smooth tannins; very long spicy/blackberry/Syrah/ripe/bit boysenberry slight c-c/peppery slight Rhonish/meaty light toasty/oak finish w/ light ripe tannins; a bit rough/angular on the palate but a lovely classic c-c Syrah at a great price. $10.00 (TJ)
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A wee BloodyPulpit:
1. It's much easier to bottom-feed at TotalWines. When you see a label/producer you don't recognize, if it says "WineryDirect" on the shelf-talker and T.SarantyImports on the back label, you're pretty much assured to get a dull-as-dishwater wine. But at TJ's, you have to be a bit more discerning. If the bottling location is AmericanCanyon or Modest, you can be pretty sure it's a FredFranzia wine. May be pretty bland & characterless, maybe a small step above that. But on this unknown label, I noted it specified EdnaVlly AVA, but no identifiable producer. So I suspected it might have a fighting chance to be something decent. It was more than that.
It was probably a Syrah bulked out by an EdnaVlly wnry that didn't meet their standards and bttld under this made-up label.
In MorganHill, was probably btld at Guglielmo Wnry. Guessing on the producer, I would guess EdnaVllyVnyds or BaileyanaWnry, maybe WolffVnyds. Adding to the mystery, there is a Bozzano Wnry in PasoRobles that specializes in custom-label bulk wines, which includes the W&M label. So they probably bought the wine in bulk and bttld this up for TJ's, but don't know why in MorganHill rather than PasoRobles.
But whoever made it, this is a pretty danged good Syrah at an outstanding price. Worth checking out.
Tom