Bogle Sauvignon Blanc, 2004 $11.99, Golden Eagle Market ($9.99, BevMo)

Ever wonder what the markup is from cut-rate big box “likkers” to your corner store? In this case, it’s two bucks.

I got some of this at the BevMo twofer sale. I love all the Bogle reds—the Petite Syrah is particularly nice. I’m not quite sold on the Sauv Blanc, however.

It noses up with divnity. It has a scant smell that invokes citrus and makes you want to eat oysters. So far, so good. The first bottle presented this great citrusy fruit on the front end with this nice mineral undertone and then it sprung battery acid on me. And it wasn’t just me. It was the Puffin, too. The finish was just… confused. I kept the last glass in the bottle and let it sit for a couple of days and I drank it and it was fine. Some of the citrus had faded a little but the battery acid was completely gone. It’d gone from a promising-but-wtf Sauv Blanc to a perfectly serviceable quaffing wine. Great for an afternoon in Dolores Park. Or, perhaps, up about six thousand feet in Yosemite. We had to see.

So the second bottle I “decanted” into a collapsible bag and took it backpacking. Maybe it was the company, my tiredness, or the extra chill, or the oxygen and sloshing in the bag, but it was great up the Alder Creek Trail with Trails (who kept us on the… oh, nevermind). I can highly recommend this wine for drinking at a remote backcountry campfire chilled in spring snow run-off, while exhausted with a beautiful woman. I’m going to have to try it again on its own to recommend otherwise. For now, at least decant.