Bargetto Winery Mixed Red - 4 Pack

Bargetto Winery Mixed Red - 4 Pack
$54.99 + $5 shipping
CONDITION: Red
PRODUCTS:
1 2008 Merlot, Santa Cruz Mountains (Retro Label)
1 2008 Zinfandel, Lodi “OLD VINE” (Retro Label)
1 2008 Rosso Barrel Select
1 2008 Syrah, Santa Cruz Mountains
CT links above

Winery website

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Previous offers:
9/10/09
9/4/08
6/25/07

Will be interested to see what people think. This is one of the two wine clubs the wife and I dropped in 2009 with no thoughts of returning. They have some interesting stuff, be the last time we tasted with them it was a mixed bag. Some VERY good, others not so much. Wine.Woot spoils us with Ty, Corison and Wellington far too often.

Smith & Hook please. :slight_smile:

These are probably ideal for drinking on a boat while watching wrestlers performing Italian ballet. Or barge-baletto.

Some of my favorite wines come from the Santa Cruz mountains! Have not had a Bargetto though.

These all look pretty young. I’d probably keep them a bit. I love the look of the high acid levels on all of these, though the Syrah looks a little riper and higher pH it’s still respectable, if slightly high in alcohol. Syrah can stand most things :smiley:

What do you mean, far too often for those wines? No such thing!

Drat - could have used one last night! :wink:

Previous Woots make for interesting reading, but none of these were offered. Anyone here tried any of these?

…I’ve been Zin-Jonesing lately.

edit: before anyone asks, that’s not the same as Zeta-Jonesing.

The winery price is:
2008 Merlot: 15
2007! Zinfandel: 30
2007! Rosso Barrel Select: 16
2008 Syrah: 25

86 if my math is right, plus shipping.
Also it appears that these are the same people that make Chaucer mead, which has gotten less than stellar reviews here…

Bargetto makes decent wines, I did a tour/teasting of their winery a few years ago. Everything was on the better side of average except for their port, which was outstanding. If the port was part of this offer i would be in for 1 in a heartbeat, but unfortunately its not so I’m going to have to pass on this one.

At the winery I learned that Bargetto also makes the Chaucer’s mead and wines.

I notice that each of the offerings has full malo-lactic fermentation. If this were Chardonnay that would automatically make it a “no buy”. Does full MLF render a red wine as “flabby” as is it seems to do to a chard?

Onne winemaker told me that many or most reds go through malolactic fermentation, so it’s normal!

I’m not sure as to whether all winemakers let that happen, or encourage it, and with all varietals. But it’s not uusual. I hope a winemaker / old hand can enlighten us.

labeling looks interesting - “might” woot one tomorrow…

Soak all the labels off the bottles and replace them with ripple labels,making them immediatly drinkable.

Definitely not a fan. Tried some from a previous woot offering. Never again. Half the bottles were drinkable at best. The rest I didn’t even use for cooking.

Edit: bad math and harshness

lol that’s funny! Sort of the reverse of what kids do when they steal their Dad’s wine…

Why ““Old vine”” and not just “old vine?” Are the vines on which the grapes were grown old or not? And if not, why call them “old vine?”

The first Nebbiolo appearance I have seen in quite some time on Woot, and it appears to have been mixed in beyond recognition in their cheap blend. How disappointing. Would they have offered it straight up, I would have gone in for one, despite the Chaucer Mead connection. That said, a future Nebbiolo offering would be appreciated…

I do love the retro labels! …but I will not let labels influence my wine buying

Bargetto has been around since the end of Prohibition. They have mostly bought grapes and/or wine in and finished it over the years, and have been known - mostly locally in the immediate area - for rustic, serviceable wines that ran in the pack.

They were the first to have a public tasting room in the area and were a frequent stop for college students traveling between the Bay Area and points North and Monterey, Big Sur, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and points South.

I confess my entire personal acquaintance with Bargetto comes from stops in their tasting room in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Many students enjoyed and bought the wines, especially the generics in jugs, which were certainly a substantial cut above the “Red Mountain Burgandy”, “Red Mountain Pink Chablis” and “Red Mountain Chablis” which were routinely featured at student parties more for their wallop and their $1.49/gallon pricing.

I think I bought Zin or Barbera once or twice (which were generally considered their best efforts), but I was fortunate enough to have access to generally better wines from family sources at substantially below wholesale for daily drinkers and party wines, and to many of the best Napa and Sonoma wines at wholesale or a bit less to drink for personal pleasure and with knowledgeable friends.

I never liked their fruit wines or mead. These were both popular with the Society for Creative Anachronism crowd, who seemed to think they gave some bit of historical verisimilitude to revels.

Additional thought. I see the Zin is listed as being aged in a large (3000 gallon) Oak barrel. This is (fairly) unusual today, almost everyone wants to advertise that the wine has been aged substantially in small Oak barrels. However, before 1980 or so, this was very common, especially for generics and their component wines, primarily Zinfandel, Carignane, Petit Sirah, and Alicante Bouschet. Small oak barrels for other than premium wines were virtually unknown before 1975, and were uncommon even for most premium wines before 1970. Almost all of the great Inglenook Cask Cabernets spent most of their time in literal Casks, of around 1000 gallons. Beaulieu was unusual in using small oak for the de Latour.

I wonder if all of the others were aged only in small oak barrels, or whether some of the other wines were aged in large barrels/casks as well. The language of the descriptions is a bit ambiguous.

The Zin is from Lodi in the Central Valley, and was picked at high Brix and is hot, but if you’re interested in seeing what a Zin aged in a big oak cask is like, try this and compare it some other Lodi Zin such as the Ravenswood.

Big word alert above!

verisimilitude [ˌvɛrɪsɪˈmɪlɪˌtjuːd]
n

  1. the appearance or semblance of truth or reality; quality of seeming true
  2. something that merely seems to be true or real, such as a doubtful statement
    [from Latin vērisimilitūdō, from vērus true + similitūdō similitude]