Issue 1.5: Lost Vineyards Argentinian Merlot

Hello all. I'm going to try to keep updating this regularly every Friday or Saturday (coming up: Kentucky Gentleman!), but I'm also going to try doing occasional midweek episodes detailing my adventures with lighter stuff. This week: pisswine!

The story behind the Lost Vineyards label is their attempt to bring Californian 2-dollar Charles Shaw wine East. Well, not actually that wine-- according to one source (something I found on Google) "The quality of the wine and its low price have spawned urban legends to explain why
'Two Buck Chuck' is priced so low, yet isn't 'wino wine.'"
There are two main differences between this description and the tacky bottle I hold before me. The first is price: this was actually $3.33, which I love. That's 3-for-10 pricing. That's pricing designed to make you buy three bottles of this. (I actually bought two, but that's because I use them for cooking with-- this will be the first time I've actually had a glass).

The second is that this is not wino wine. This is not wine. You know how the back labels of bottles always exaggerate the product? Like it'll talk about "hints of apple and a light undercurrent of rosewood, punctuated by the faint notes of a girl's trepidation at the oncoming spring and the approach of her womanhood," and you just taste fancy grape juice, punctuated by bubbles?

This label brags that the wine is "drinkable."

LOOK
A very, very, dark red, leaning towards purple. I don't really know wine that well, but this is almost black. That can't be right. There's also a really faint sort of brownish-orange tinge to it, kind of like the edge of a bruise, or woodstain.

NOSE
Notes of red wine vinegar, with a gentle hint of apple cider vinegar. Also, a very faint grapey smell under it all. Not like wine grapes though. Like grape juice.

TASTE Oh, fuck. There's a reason that the vineyards of Argentina stayed goddamn lost. The label brags about "rediscovering" the vineyards of the New World. Jesus, that sounds like some Indiana Jones type shit, and I think we've all learned he should stay the hell out of South America.

Bad Idea Alien does not approve of this wine.

There's no real fruit flavor here at all. No real "drinkable" flavor either. It pretty much tastes like red wine vinegar mixed with water and sugar. Not good water. Like, really bad tap water. Like, if you ran your tap water through a fish instead of a filter, like some zany Roald Dahl character or (I imagine) the Japanese. I'm two big sips in and my throat is closing up-- probably from the acridness, but I like to imagine just out self-defense.

Hey, while we're on the topic of Indiana Jones, you know what else [pop-culture has informed me] Argentina is full of? Fucking Nazis. Now, I'm not saying that the people who make Lost Vineyards wine are Nazis-- they're probably just extremely well-dressed and seductive farmers. However, and again, I don't want to make accusations, but this is the kind of wine Mengele would make.

Angel of wine / Vintner to the vineyard of the dead

Wait, no, I was wrong. Took my last big gulp (why did I pour such a big glass, why), and there is a bit of actual flavor there. It tastes vaguely like leather, under all the terrible.

FINAL THOUGHTS
No, it's actually more like Eichmann. At first you think there's nothing actually there beyond layers of empty soullessness and repugnance, but deep down, so deep that it doesn't even know it exists, there's a little blackened nub of a soul.

And that soul tastes like leather