Dearly Beloved I Thee Red 2015

The Dearly Beloved I Thee Red 2015 is Red blend found at Trader Joe’s ($7.99) made from grapes grown in the Central Coast AVA of California. This is a TJ’s wine that has been around for a while, we first reviewed the 2009 vintage. Dearly Beloved is one of the Truett-Hurst labels, they specialize in selling wines thru Trader Joe’s, Target, Kroger, Albertson’s, and Total stores. Truett-Hurst has not updated the Dearly Beloved website since the 2012 vintage but in 2012 the blend of grapes in the I Thee Red was Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah, Cabernet Franc, and Petit Sirah. The first thing you notice about the I Thee Red bottle is the intricate red stenciled Mexican Day of the Dead label, that gives this wine a few extra points even before you pop the cork. The alcohol content is 14.5%.

The color is a very serious purple. The nose is blackberry, raspberry, savory bacon fat,  blueberry, spice, molasses, and vanilla bean. This is a medium-bodied wine with a soft mouthfeel upfront and a fair amount of structure on the mid-palate. It tastes of sour cherry, exotic spice, blackberry, plum, and black pepper. The mid-palate shows Altoids spice, cranberry, blueberry, and Nestle’s Quick powder. The tannins make their presence known, nothing overbearing, but they are there.The acidity is muted, but it will work as a food wine, BBQ, burgers, pizza and the like. The finish is full and as far as I can tell may never end.

The Dearly Beloved I Thee Red 2015 is a very solid 8 buck Red blend. It has a lot of flavor, a good selection of ripe fruits and spices. Decent balance, nice length, this is an old school California “kitchen sink” blend. Have a glass or 2 with some Firecracker shrimp or Nashville Hot Chicken.

See also  2009 Cold Heaven Make Peace Pinot Noir
About the Author
Don’t tell anyone, but there is absolutely no correlation between the cost of wine and the quality of wine.

1 comment on “Dearly Beloved I Thee Red 2015

  1. Chris says:

    Honestly I thought this was pretty awful wine. It’s really sweet. Reminded me of two,buck Chuck or the worst of the Yellow-Tail reds.

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