The Wine Behind the Spooky Labels

Every Tuesday on the BottleBlog, we'll focus on interesting or exciting industry news from here in New Jersey, to the valleys of California, to the vineyards of New Zealand. Today we're staying close to home as Joe Canal's was recently featured on Zita Keeley's wine blog, All I Do is Wine.

Last night was the latest Fall wine event for the New Jersey Chapter of Women for Winesense all about Spooky wine labels. It was a lot of fun to find wines that not only had fun label names but that we would actually want to drink as well! We came ups with 8 wines only one of which was a white. That was the Vampire Chardonnay 2007 from the Central Coast of California. An easy drinking, simple and fruity wine with balanced oakiness for around $8.99 this is not a bad Chardonnay.
The reds for the evening were:

The Wolftrap Syrah 2009 – Western Cape, South Africa
Bull’s Blood (Bakondi) 2005- Northern Hungary
The Dead Arm Shiraz 2006- McLaren Vale, Australia
Killibinbin 2006 – Langhorne Creek, South Australia
Turkey Flat Butcher’s Block 2006- Barossa Valley, Australia
Peter Lehmann “Eight Songs” Shiraz Phantom Queen 2000 – Barossa Valley,
Jersey Devil Port – NV Shamong, NJ

There wasn’t a single wine that wasn’t enjoyed. Overall, my absolute favorite of the night was the Eight Songs Shiraz that I found had incredible concentrated dried fruitiness and just seem to linger on my palate. It had some port like qualities to it that I loved. This wine retails for around $50. My second favorite of the night was The Dead Arm Shiraz. This had an old world earthy aroma and big bold fruit on the palate with a nice smooth and round finish. For me, this was the most balanced wine of the night. Retail price $50. For best value, I would choose the Killibinbin and Turkey Flat wines. Retail for those are $16.00 and $15.00 respectively. All the wines are Shiraz/Syrah based and for an every day, tasty and full-bodied wine these two are ideal. My least favorite wine of the night was our own state’s Jersey Devil Port made from a grape called Cynthiana. I didn’t quite know what to expect with this wine and was disappointed when it just tasted like fruit juice with a lot of alcohol in it. At 19% it certainly did. But, with that said, this happened to be 2 of our tasters favorite wines for the night proving, once again, we are all individual.

The 2 other wines I didn’t enjoy so much were the Bull’s Blood and Wolftrap. I have had Wolftrap before and it’s been pleasant enough but in contrast to the other wines of the evening this one fell flat. The Bull’s Blood came off very acidic and un-balanced but perhaps could have been more enjoyable with a meal. Neither of those wines are expensive so you might want to try them and see for yourself. All the wines were purchased from Joe Canal’s in Iselin, NJ and I am sure still available. I definitely want some more of the Phantom Queen!

Cheers,
The Wining Woman

Originally published on All I Do is Wine on Sunday, October 17th, 2010.