Homemade Wine Review: Decent Rhone Blend GSM

We recently threw a family party and a friend of Shannon's parents brought a bottle of homemade wine that she said her friend Betty and her father made and they wanted an opinion from "A Professional".

After that kind of introduction how could we say no.  While we may debate Betty's take on us being professionals, we figured we'd give it a taste and give an honest opinion on the wine.

So, Betty and Betty's Dad, here it is our honest opinion:

This wine is a Grenache - Syrah - Mourvedre Rhone blend produced by WineExpert during their annual Selection release which is a limited edition release for their kits.  We made a Douro Tinto a couple of years ago that we have a few bottles kicking around and it was excellent.  So, the quality of the juice is there.

The wine looks like a Rhone blend, which skews slightly to the lighter side of things, call it medium bodied.  Rhone wines are known for their elegant nature and that includes not being as heavy as your Bordeaux blends might be.  This wine looks great and it was cleared and fined nicely.

The nose on this wine is where the homemade nature kicks in.  It has that familiar funky homemade wine nose that comes with the territory.  It takes a lot to get that nose to dissipate but mostly it just takes time.  It is not bad per se but a tell-tale sign of a homemade kit wine.  Somewhere between barnyard and BO, homemade wine is so much better when it's gone.  Basically all of our kits have had this smell for a significant period of time before it went away.  If we tried this wine in 6 to 12 months we bet it's better.  While that dominates the nose you can still get the fruity nature of the blend and it has an almost perfumed smell in there.  Not bad.

The flavours on the wine are really nice, it tastes great.  Strawberries and raspberries are followed by almost a nutty mid-palate that finishes tart and a little thin.  Overall, not too shabby.  It really tastes good and in a year I bet it will be awesome and rival some of the GSM's you might find in the liquor store.  Until then put it in a box in a dark part of the basement and come back and try a bottle every few months.  It might not take a year to get there.

So, the final verdict is....well done.  We aren't going to score it other than to say you get an A for effort.  We would be proud if that came out of our carboys.  Keep up the good work.

Hopefully that was the feedback you were looking for Betty.  All the best to you and your Dad.

Our next kit will probably be one that is a higher percentage of juice or has actual grapes in the kit.  We are finding that the difference in quality that you get at the higher price point is totally worth it, so we are going to spend a bit more next time.

Keep on tasting!

Chris & Shannon