2008 Big Woop Red Wine $13

A full one liter bottle, makes this Grenache, Shiraz and  Petit Verdot Red blend a Big Woop. Ben Riggs is the winemaker and he also makes our favorite $8 Red Wine, Woop Woop Shiraz. Sourced from McLaren Vale, Riverland and the Limestone Coast of Australia, with a 14.5% alcohol content.

The color is a deep dark red with crimson highlights. The nose is unexpected, pencil shavings, cedar moth balls, light menthol, leather and red fruit. What’s going on with cheap wine, all these aromas used to be the exclusive right of the expensive stuff. The mouth feel is very full, a bit of an explosion of taste. The flavor is ripe dark fruit with a dose of the Shiraz spice at the end. Nice long finish of raspberry iced tea.

The Big Woop Red Blend is a tasty little wine. You don’t expect a whole bunch from something called Big Woop, but this wine delivers beyond expectations.

2005 Skillogalee Riesling – $9

There is a Australian Video Blog that I watch, www.wineweek.com.au . The reviews are not super detailed , but Danny and Brad are very enthusiastic about Aussie wines and I get to keep up with the latest Australian slang. One thing they have been saying lately is to keep away from Australian and New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, they insist it tastes of “cat pee”,  the Aussie Riesling has really been on the money lately and it is a far better choice.

Which brings me to the 2005 Skillogalee Riesling, the grapes a sourced from a single vineyard, family owned estate in the Claire Valley and produced in small batches. The bottle I found must have been an end of the bin special, because the 2009 vintage has already been released. It seems that this is a very popular and award winning wine in Australia, but in checking the Web, I did not see much information on this Riesling from U.S. sources. The price for this wine in Australia runs between $15 and $20, so this is proof there are bargains to be had in this economy.

The color is a pale straw yellow. The nose is citrus, minerals and dusty slate. The flavor is smooth rounded pears and honey, muted grapefruit in the back of your palate. The mouth feel is slightly oily and the finish is light citrus that goes on and on and on.The five years of bottle age have been kind to this wine, all the different tastes are well blended, the sharper citrus flavors just dance around the edges. Not a sweet Riesling at all, very dry and very smooth, very tasty. At this price this wine is an amazing steal.

Chateau Chateau Skulls – $17

Old World Wines vs New World Wines, Terrior vs Manipulated, Earthy vs Fruity. There has been a bit of a shift happening in the wine world, Australian wine sales are off 23%, stores that used to stock 100 different Aussie labels, not stock half that amount. There has been a backlash in the Wine Press, Australian wines are often described as “fruit bombs” or “over extracted”. I don’t quite get the change in attitude, Australian wines are every bit as good now as they were when they were the hottest wines going. So, times and tastes change and R winery is rolling with the changes. The Chateau Chateau series of wine is intended to show the terroir, the effects of Australian soil and weather conditions on the Grenache grape. They have a line of single vineyard vines all done in an “Old World” style. Skulls is the entry level wine for Chateau Chateau and has a very cool label, look at it one way and it is a surreal painting of a man falling from a tree, look at it again and it is a human skull.

Skulls is a french style blend of 60% Grenache and 40% Mataro (another name for Mourvedre or Monastrell) no oak, aged in stainless steel. This is the entry level wine and it is not single vineyard,but sourced from vineyards all over South Australia. The nose is nice jammy cooked dark fruit with a touch of spice, the color is a see thru burgundy. The flavor has dark fruit in the lead, but it has mushroom, stewed meat element too. A very interesting transition on your palate from fruit to the savory flavors and then a nice long finish. All the flavors are well blended, nothing jarring, a slight bite from the tannins at first but that goes away with the second sip. All the delicious fruit you would expect from an Australian wine, but it still has that French funky, earthy thing going on, the best of both worlds.  Interesting flavors and the label is pretty cool, this one is a winner.

2008 Yellow Tail Shiraz – $7

Yellow Tail is one of the reasons we started this website. There are so many interesting under twenty dollar wines available, but virtually undiscovered, while Yellow Tail was 1/10th of all wine sales. There is nothing wrong with Yellow Tail Shiraz, for the price it’s fine. It’s available everywhere, cheap and it has a reliable taste, it’s kind of the McDonald’s of wine. Compared to the other mass produced wines it holds it’s own, but put it up against wine that sells for a few bucks more and Yellow Tail can’t compete. So head to your local wine shop, tell the help there that you want a bottle of their best under $10 wine, give it a try, find your new go-to everyday wine. There are some really exciting, well priced wines out there, start drinking your way through as many as you can. If price is the #1 consideration in your wine buying, then Yellow Tail isn’t a bad choice. But otherwise save your pennies and find a wine with a little “wow” factor.

Oh, I almost forgot, the review: The color is deep dark red, the nose is cherries with a bit of alcohol. It tastes of tangy cherry juice with a hint of sour green stick flavor popping up now and again. Even though the cherry flavor is slightly sour the over all taste is a bit sweet. No tannins to speak of and the finish is nondescript. A very drinkable, but simple wine.

2007 Ring Bolt Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignon – $15

Beautiful and treacherous Western Australia’s rugged southwest coastline is littered with shipwrecks, one of them being the Ringbolt, sunk in the late 1800s in the vessel’s namesake Ringbolt Bay, at the Southern end of the Margaret River wine region.

Hailing from there, this Aussie Cabernet Sauvignon is just as rugged! The nose is typical of Cabernet Sauvignon grown in this type of cool and rugged climate  – beautifully complex aromas of Swiss dark chocolate, a Starbuck’s Venti no-whip mocha, violets, cassis, cedar, black and green peppers and dried Autumn leaves  . In the mouth it begins with dark fruit before teasing with ripe berries and creamy oak on a looong finish.

A good wine at twice the price! This wine is bold and can handle lamb, chili or spicy Mexican food no problem!

2008 Woop Woop Shiraz

One of my favorite entry-level (read: cheap, as in under $10 in some places) red wines that hits you up front with intense dark fruit, mellows mid-sip into a nice black licorice, then finishes with a black peppery and spicy bang. Think Pam Grier in Foxy Brown. And just like Foxy, this wine’s almost too hot to mess with – coming in at 15% alcohol content! Take that beer drinkers who think drinking wine is wimpy.

Woop Woop is Outback slang for “the middle of nowhere”. So next time you’re looking for some bang for your buck out in the middle of BFE, I mean Woop Woop, stick with this and you won’t mind so much.

Get it HERE.