Thursday, August 14, 2014

The Natural, 2010 California Red Table Wine

This wine came to me in a “mystery case” from an online retailer. The case, or actually this wine, is still a mystery.
The wine is made by Plata Wine Partners, a company that produces start up and private label wines. For example, they developed the Buccaneer line of wines for the large BevMo chain.

Plata has access to more than 25,000 acres of California wine grapes. In addition to having some talented winemakers, they have a stable of designers and a packaging team that can take a wine from concept to the bottle.
That being said, I really got no closer in determining the details on this wine. I usually do investigation online to see if there are data sheets from the winery or other stories when I prepare a review. In this case, nada.
I will say that we enjoyed it at a BYOB party on the porch of a historic home in Bowling Green with about 50 other people. The weather was perfect and the The Natural was a sipper that worked well while juggling a wine glass and a plateful of finger food.
“The Natural” is a baseball themed movie with Robert Redford and there is a turn-of-the-century baseball player on the label. For about $10 I wasn’t expecting a home run. I think I got at least an RBI single, though.
It’s a smooth wine with ample red berry flavor. Not much to speak of in the tannin department. A good guess is that this is a California Zinfandel blend and it is certainly the equal of other red blends in the under $15 department.
Rating: 2 of 5  Value: 2.5 of 5

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