Let’s all hail Donald Trump as the next President of the United Stats. After all, the Don himself said he was leading in the polls and he personally sent me a confirmation at 4 in the morning that I will be the White House sommelier when he wins the election. Hell with the bitch who won the juiced “Miss Universe” pageant. That whore came from a lawless country that can’t even supply tampons to its indigenous people. She ate like a whale and sex’d like she was on Monday Night Football. We already placed an order on her soon-to-be-released sex tape that the Don confirmed was in existence.
In a related story, Seattle police have asked Sean to stop dressing as a clown when he visits local tasting rooms and asks to taste only their “award-winning” wines. This free-loading pussy of an aged wine slogger has been clamped in recent memory, thanks to that D-listed wine rag, Choad Enthusiast. That douchebag’s contractual obligations forbid anymore pussy-assed queer tweets about what wine he’s sloggin’ that he stole from dumbass wineries, such as the Walla Walla bitch that flipped him some $80 QED for a few infected sweet words. Wineries should know by now that wine bloggers have ZERO influence on the bottom line, but it seems that Walla Walla wineries are too busy attempting to insert cactus enemas in every wine blogger that requests their wine for review.
Where have the others gone since?
Good ol’ fatass Shona is still mooching the free Twitter train. Looks like the fat pig scored a last-minute deal with a third-rate virus-infested cruise line and she then spread her hepatitis A virus to the locals on Maui.
MarGot continues her mooching ways by sweet-talking her way to free wines. The latest sucker, “Diplomat” Wines of Red Mountain and “Bordeaux” Wines of central Washington got cred recently for their wines with a pithy few words.
And, there’s Jameson the fink who not only massages the scroats of local wine bloggers, including MarGot, but also schmoozes up to the NY boys in hopes of scoring a gig with the big-time fishwraps.
As I have stated before, asshats can never be rehab’d. Once they go their pathetic ways, they can never return to the land of the uninfected.
Wineries can only hope to have their tasting room staff edumacated enough not to get fooled by that line, “I’m a wine blogger. Can you give me free wine to review?”
Thankfully, the undigested diarrhea emanating from Wine Creeps has ceased. The bitch who disgraced Husky tennis has finally relented and returned to her place in obscurity.
If it’s one thing people notice, it’s the simple fact that wineries only hoot and holler juicy scores to hype their wines. Be especially wary of those wineries that only hollah the absurdly ridiculous scores from Wine Enth. These scores are artificial and are given a “+2 or 3 points” by the reviewer, based on how much free wine was supplied to their ambiguous tasting review. Paul Gutless once admitted that he cut a deal with the Walla Walla wineries by fluffing up the scores in order to promote Walla Walla wines and justify the bonko prices for their flabby wines. This is not only flat out unethical, but it reveals how overpriced the wines are in certain regions of the state.
To my new readers, be aware of the quality-to-price ratio. It is imperative to actually go to a winery and taste the wines in their natural state without the slime of some rating point labeled from a juiced wine reviewer. Most every wine blog you have read prior to arriving at this blog based their review on some free sample from a winery desperate for recognition. Wine blogs that do not occasionally rip a winery for their shitty wines are part of the shenanigan to shamelessly promote overpriced wines. It is your duty to read past the bullshit of any wine you are interested in by actually visiting the winery, talking to the winemaker/staff, and getting a vibe for who is attracted to the wine. Why would anyone pay for a wine where only broke-ass Black Lies Matter crunk f*cks congregate at?
And, this is where this blog has always shined.
Our group of homies actually go out to the wineries, unannounced, and pay for the wines that interest us. Yes, we have escaped many a tasting room with only paying the tasting fee because, quite simply, why should anyone be obligated to pay for a shitty wine?
The benefit of this wine blog is that we taste wines that were NOT donated to us. We pay for the wine, we say whatever we want about the wine. This is what consumers want to know. This is not some pay-to-play, let’s all be gay, yippee kay yay slave blog to the wine industry. Review the past issues and you will become informed that this blog is the essential watchdog for the Washington wine industry.
There are still a bountiful cluster of wine homers that will never reveal the blots on the industry in order to promote their wines as the best in the world. They are wrong. Washington wines are fantastic, but they are not the consensus BEST in the world. Washington is not an emerging region for wine (see Quilceda Creek wines). Washington is not the perfect climate for wine growing (see pinot noir). Columbia Crest does not make the most “exciting” wines. And, Chuck Smith is not the face of Washington wine.
These are the truths: (1) Washington wines are a better value than any other U.S. region, regardless of varietal; (2) Woodinville is the center of the wine universe in this state; (3) Washington cabernet sauvignon is THE BOSS, period; and (4) Washington wines since the 2012 vintage are the safest bets in the marketplace.
Only the finest producers make the exception to some of these rules. Betz is one of them.
Let’s face it, you won’t see a review of this wine because the winery never let this wine out of its closed wine club. Long-closed wine club. A Russian spy couldn’t infiltrate a Betz release party if the bitch wanted to. Well, that’s unless she hooked up with me. But I can’t stand the wide hips of a Russian whore.
Betz hasn’t completed the transition to its new South African owners and maybe that’s a good thing. Let’s admit this, it takes more than time to make an outstanding wine. It takes a relentless spirit and laser-focused passion over time to create consistently stunning wines. That’s what Bob Betz devoted his adult life to.
This wine is a first for Betz Family Winery. Reserve du Soleil was borne out of a few remarkable barrels of mourvedre. Mourvedre, peeps. This is a grape that has mostly played a supporting role in Rhone blends dominated by grenache or syrah. Mourvedre is not the most complex of grapes. It doesn’t pick up the taste of the land as well as the other grapes. That’s when it is conventionally grown. This mourvedre was pulled from an iconic vineyard in Washington’s most revered AVA, Red Mountain. The resulting blend has been nothing less than a revelation.
Young, pungent, and enduring are the first words to describe this wine. Inky black garnet in the Riedel with lingering flavors of ripe black boysenberry, black currant, black plum, black licorice, paprika, red chili pepper, smoke, dried cherry, and refined leathery tannins radiate on the palate. A reference standard for Washington wine that does not contain cabernet sauvignon.
Alcohol: 14.5%. Less than 100 cases. Columbia Valley AVA. Vineyard suspects include Ciel du Cheval and Olsen. 51% mourvedre, 27% cinsault, 18% grenache, 4% counoise. Power: 3/5. Balance: 4/5. Depth: 4/5. Finesse: 4/5. Rated: 95. Value: $80. Music pairing: “Young And Relentless” by Against The Current. This is WAwineman… uncorked, uneducated but not uncouth.
WAwineman's Northwest Wine Weekly 