I live, as you may have guessed, in a rural area of the US. While this has many advantages, I lack the conveniences of city life. The wine stores here are nothing to write home about, but almost as troubling is the absence of any reasonable stores selling cooking paraphernalia. So when I went looking for a 375 mL decanter the other day, I was not surprised to find none available. So I decided to just go and buy a damn half bottle of some junky wine and use that instead. I wound up spending $4 on this bottle, which I figured I'd find something to do with.

I was pleasantly surprised. While Fetzer is not a name that brings the word "quality" to mind, this wine seemed to be…well, as good as it could be, given its heritage. It had a very young look about it, with a substantial purple to its redness. The aroma was confused: while generally dominated by oak, there were some indistinct herbal bits that my nose couldn't decode. The simple taste was warm and fruity, in the standard Merlot vein, finishing with some pretty strong tannins that pushed it closer to the full bodied frontier. Overall, the wine was rough around the edges, but may actually benefit from a little aging (strange as that sounds for a $4 wine).

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