“Turtle wine” Chardonnay/Sauvignon Blanc 2004 Golden Eagle Market (20th/Valencia, SF), $8.99
Disclaimer: OK, I can’t remember what this wine was, but it had turtles playing violins on it. Cute. Not.
I don’t know why, but I had some hopes for this wine. Not particularly high hopes, but some hope nonetheless. I bought it on a total lark one day from my corner store trying to break out of my propensity for hitting up Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods (both of which are, technically, on a corner, just not really where people really live, nor wander over for a last minute bottle. And they have a selection).
In any case, my favorite ever corner store is the Golden Eagle Market. Sam, the Jordanian émigré and his wife are fantastic and nice and friendly and everything you want in corner store proprietors. And they have a pink original iMac. How cool is that? I’m sure they bought it for their daughter or something.
Anyway, I was suckered in by the odd little turtles on the bottle and by its presence at a corner store and by the fact that it was a white wine; it had been pointed out that I’d been quite red-heave. Well, summer’s here and whites (and even pinks) are getting their fair share passing down my throat.
So I have to confess: Sauvignon Blanc is one of my all-time favorite whites. It seems like it’s hard to mess up. Chardonnay, however, doesn’t sit so well with me. I can appreciate them all, but I’m just not terribly interested in drinking them on anything like a regular basis. But this intrigued me.
Unfortunately, it turns out that we get the worst of both worlds. There’s a big fruit front-end that doesn’t have any of the subtlety of a nice Sauvignon Blanc—the citrus is overwhelmed by all the oak in the Chard, for instance, and there’s no minerality to speak of. You just get this lame-nosed buttery fruit bomb. And none of the elements are particularly good. This is a perfectly serviceable wine to, say, make white sangria out of. Or to (As I and the Puffin did) sneak onto a Southwest flight and make white spritzers with Sprite. Other than that… I guess you can follow up several Pacificos in it in a cut-rate motel in Mexico DF while alone. Just not with a friend. Skip this one. Get something else.