Gary: Hello everybody and welcome to Wine Library TV. I'm your host, Gary Gaynerchuk, and this my friends is the Thunder Show a.k.a. the internet’s most passionate wine program, and I'm here in the city today taping. My Omaha Episode is corrupted, so a little hairy situation. We’re trying to fix that. That’s what we’re going to air today, so I'm doing a little impromptu show and I’ve decided to focus on doing an episode with wines that are widely available. A lot of people are busting my chops. You know, you put on all these wines and I can’t find them.
So what I’ve decided here today is to have at least two very available wines that 80% of you may be able to find around the country, and then one wine that’s a little less maybe available, but a $6.00 Australian Chardonnay that I’ve been hearing about having had the privilege of the shrine, so I'm going to do that as well. So let’s give right into it.
The first one we have is the B&G 2007 Vouvray, Barton & Guestier, $8.00 made from Chenin Blanc Vouvray from the Loire Valley, very cool kind of place to make white wine. One of my favorite areas in the world, they took enormous amounts of Sancerre and Fume Blanc and Sauvignon. I'm just a huge fan of Chenin Blanc. I think it is wildly the most underrated white wine in the world.
Now, the B&G is the standard kind of—again, this is probably the Vouvray that your local liqueur store carries. I guarantee. As a matter of fact, leave in the comments. If you go to your local shops and say, “Do you have any Vouvray?” and this is the one they have. I'm telling you, I'm betting on it, it’s the one. Alright, now that we’ve established that, let’s give this wine a sniffy-sniff.
I get almost like a peachy pear kind of thing going on on the nose, almost like a sour apple flavor coming across as well on the nose, lacking the minerality that I get excited about with Vouvray at times. Let’s give it a whirl.
Very light, it has a nice little minerality on the mid-palate, almost like a blue stone component, a little hint of sweetness. I would not call it sugarfied but like a little—like very fresh fruit. You know, like when you get really sweet peach and you bite it, it’s like really sugary—that kind of flavor. It kind of lacks any depth and also disappears quite a bit on the finish. As a matter of fact, I feel like I just drank a glass of water, not a sip of wine. It is that much of a disappearing act, a little Houdini action on my palate. And I'm left to say, “Hmm, am I happy about that or am I upset?” in this weird scenario because of almost like light apple juice flavor on the back end that I'm tasting last. I'm kind of okay with it, but this is definitely not a serious wine and definitely not one that I would even bring to a meal. This is clearly an aperitif drink by itself kind of play. I’ll give it one more shot.
The apple is undeniable by the way. You know what, not bad, $8.00 definitely not the worst thing I’ve never had. You know 86, 85-point wine—let’s go 85+. No Mott here to zoom up on my jersey. Really good solid stuff and nothing to really get so disappointed about but at the same token, if you’re looking for something serious, this is not it. Let’s move on.
Santi 2007 Soave. I think Soave is really an interesting grape east of Verona and $12.00. I think Soave is just a great—it kind of gets overlooked. People look at Bola Soave in the big bottles and don’t realize the classic Soave as the producer on the world. Again, this is the Santi. It comes from a big importer, so it’s got to be more widely available. I’m trying to give you guys some options on that end. Let’s give it a sniffy-sniff.
Tim, could you do me a favor? Can you bring me my laptop? I'm going to read some comments. That would be the way I would do it, maybe not on a piece of paper. Thank you, my man.
Tim: Yep.
Gary: I’ll just read some comments. Well, I'm letting that open a little bit. Let’s read some comments from the last show because we’ve been enjoying that part of the show. Plus it gets you excited about leaving a comment. The last show we aired was last Friday, it’s Katie Lee Joel episode. Billy Joel made a little cameo. Some of you guys had no idea who the dude in the back was. That’s who it was.
Let’s see, Abbe Faria says, “Nice guest, very sweet, QOTD: Rote Grütze with Mascarpone.” Very cool.
Victor says, “Wow! What a sweetie! I have to check out her books. qotd: Chocolate Amaretti Peaches.”
Ken T says, “Gary, never associate the Great Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer with Meister Brau or Black Label.” Ken T, I apologize. I understand where you’re coming from.
Don says, “I enjoyed the Rose episode. That was so cool that Billy Joel just walked down the stairs during the middle of the show. I must admit, I definitely have not given Rose its due and have been pretty much neglecting it completely. I will have to give it a whirl, especially if I can get my hands on the donkey and goat.”
And finally, ScottEJ says, “Nice vibe in this episode, very laid back. The Rose is on the radar and wine number three is topping the list.” Very good! Keep the comments coming.
Sniffy-sniff. I get a little dandelion kind of component on this nose, also a little bit of a melon, almost like cantaloupe action coming through, very fresh, crisp, clean on the nose. Let’s give it a whirl. A little bit acidity on the back end, little disjointed. Actually, this is quite bad. I don’t like this wine at all, very, very thin, lacking any depth, $12.00. This is what I’d like to call a rock, rip off city. I mean this wine probably is worth $3.00to $4.00 at best. As a two-buck chuck product, I’d probably be not that excited about it. It really lacks any distinction or quality that makes it interesting. I feel like I drank a blank piece of white paper. That’s how boring this wine is.
You know, Soave is supposed to be floral, good acidity, exciting to kind of pair with different foods. This wine does nothing of the sort. Basically, what it does is kind of bores me to sleep and this may be the first time I’ll fall asleep on the show in front of you. That boring, that difficult, and really very devastating, devastating, I almost pooped on it—devastating bottle of wine at $12.00, a major pass. I'm going to score this wine 61 points. I gave it a major pass. Please do not seek this out in any shape or form.
And finally, the Gregory Lyn 2007 Chardonnay, $6.00, a great price point. I heard a little bit of about this wine from a couple of people pouring by the glass, so I'm excited to see what’s going on with it. Screw top, let’s put it over here. Wow! That Santi Soave really hurt my feels.
Sniffy-sniff, it smells a little poppy action, almost like a sewer. It really comes across quite unpleasant really. Wow! Really unpleasant, though at the tail end, I get almost like mushed green peas, which I kind of like, but I would find this probably the kind of nose that a lot of you guys are not going to like. I mean it’s really not that good. It’s kind of blowing off a little bit, but still, green mushy peas come across but a little bit like a sewer. I'm getting this kind of like sewer thing going on.
Let’s give it a whirl. I need to get back to the home base and try some wines. I mean, this is—this is bad. This tastes like jolly green giant canned peas, the juice of it, right? You know how it is with the juice in there, the canned pea juice. That’s exactly what this wine tastes like, maybe squeeze a lemon into that juice, and that’s what you’re tasting. And though I like that in a weird way, there's no way I can get super excited about it because it’s very simple, very thin, and these last two wines are no doubt—let’s mark it down right now Vayniacs. This will be a trivia question when I'm 67 years old, so please mark it down.
There will be bucks for you one day. This is definitely the worst back to back effort by two wines on the Thunder Show’s history. I score this wine 57 points and really combined, neither of these wines are any good. It really makes the B&G shine when it really doesn’t deserve to. A very brutal episode, I apologize.
Question of the day, what’s the last thing you apologized for? You, with a little bit of me, and wines like these, we are changing the wine world.
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