Mirage 2009 “Not Bad Fizzy Cabernet” Case
$87.99 $̶2̶7̶1̶.̶0̶0̶ 68% off List Price
2009 Mirage Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, Monterey County
CT link above
Previous offer:
12/26/12
I got this last time around and would not recommend it. It’s ‘not bad Mirage’ but not all that good, either. There is some strange mouth feel to this wine that I can’t quite grasp. At first, it feels slightly bubbly, but even after letting it breathe, there is something not quite right. It’s cheap and won’t make you sick, but is that enough to make you buy this? I’d never buy it again and still have a lot of bottles left over.
That would be the “Fizzy” part which is unintentional secondary in-bottle fermentation which was discussed at length during the original offering. If you failed to read that discussion and purchased this blindly, you should probably go back and read through the thread.
I tired this tonight at the MN wine.woot gathering. Granted, it had been decanting for at least 2 hours, but I thought it was a pretty decent wine for <$10. I really think the key is giving it time to breath to allow the fizz to subside (unless you like fizz in your wine.)
Bought this last time around. Exactly as described upon arrival - not bad fizzy cab! As suggested during previous offerings, after opening the bottle I use a Houdini to “get the fizz out”, and poof the fizzy disappears. After leaving the bottle open to breath, i’d say it’s better than “not bad”, without the fizz. Is it great - nope, but hard to beat at the price.
Reading these comments jogged my memory. My nona was very old world Italian and always had a little wine with meals. We grandchildren were allowed to have a splash in our ginger ale, enough to turn it pink. Fizzy red wine…I just might try it.
Same here-if allowed to decant for over two hours you have yourself a very decent wine-this is a good deal.
Yep! I purchased last time and for the price was not disappointed. I decanted the wine for 2 hours and all the fizz was gone. For $8 a bottle, it’s a GREAT everyday drinker.
In for TWO. boom.
I decided to bring this to the MN gathering last night, because I thought “OK, I have nothing to impress the pros/semi-pros there with - so, what would be helpful to the community?”.
I ended up taking the Noceto up on sale right now on Wine.Woot Plus and… tadaaaa the Mirage.
Nobody gave me advance notice/any indication that this would be up on sale again, I never got a lab rat bottle either, but I figured “this was one of the most controversial offerings lately… let us give other folks the chance to chip in their 2 cents”.
I did not get a tasting bottle of it either, but I gave the community a hard time with being doubtful about the offering…
so with not much further ado… my notes…
the group who tried it was a mixed crowd, mixed preferences: beer lovers, cab fans, zin-fan-atics, sweet Riesling/moscato friends… you name it. one was a chef by profession.
I brought a seriously big, heavy decanter and poured it in there around 6:30 pm, even put a Post-it on the decanter to let it decant 2+ hours and shook and swirled it vigorously.
a few folks took the opportunity to taste the wine with the fizz still there:
most said that this seems to have potential to be a rather big Cab. nose and color were good. tasting was weird because of the fizz being the overwhelming sensation on the tongue. not bubbly, but prickly.
fast forward 3-4 hours at least and some serious swirling ->
completely different.
first of all, no fizz left.
my personal experience was, that it was very oaky with some cedar notes over a good body. did not get a lot of fruitiness out of it, but others might disagree, wine tasting is fairly personal.
everybody agreed that it was NOT bad at this point. note that a previous bottle I had did not come across as being so oaky. variations between bottles can happen, but none were ‘bad’ so far.
another fellow wooter who owns this would open the bottle and decant typically when preparing lunch, but then drink at dinner.
note that at least for me, the bottles I had were different after all, it can be an inconsistent wine. no single bottle was bad though after the fizz was gone.
what you get is a bottle of wine that without the fizz would easily be a good value at $20-$25. it would not be a $30-$50+ bottle, but what you pay for is depending on if you unlocked free shipping and depending on your sales tax about $8-$9.
so, in my humble opinion, once you unfizzed it, it will be one of the best QPRs you can get on woot (if you like Cabs at all).
This is just my personal opinion and I am getting nothing out of it sharing it. 
There are definitely some additional side-effects from the secondary fermentation. After you pour each glass, there’s a slight film that forms at the top of the glass, but it blows off if you swirl the glass a few times. There’s also an additional flavor that I think has to have resulted from the bottle fermentation. It’s 7:30 in the morning and I can’t muster the brain power to accurately describe it (or switch from my coffee to taste the open bottle), but it’s not unpleasant. I’d say it’s an earthy/mushroom flavor, it kinda reminds me of that telltale barnyard earthiness most Italian reds have. It was going to be a fairly big Cab, and all of those characteristics are still in there. There is a slight funk, but it’s not too funky.
I’ve had several people try this (after I had made sure the bubbles were gone), everyone likes it & is shocked when I tell them what it cost. Then I pour them a little glass straight out of the bottle and watch their faces twist with displeasure when they taste it. I think it has a great QPR, but like everything in life, YMMV.
I’m in agreement with those who say that this wine has a great QPR once the fizz blows off. I really enjoyed my tasting opportunity (minus the part where I mishandled the wine and had a little, umm, incident in my refrigerator) when this first came around. The last thing I need is another case of wine but I would gladly snatch up 3-4 bottles if anyone going to the Scott Harvey wine dinner in Wooster wanted to split.
“Don’t Do It!”
I bought this at the last woot off. I’m sometimes just a sucker for a good bargain, and based on the reviews, I went in for one. A bad mistake on my part.
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Fizz takes much more effort to ‘disperse’ than I would have ever guessed.
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Even when it seems ‘dispersed’, there are still very tiny bubbles.
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Agree with some other posts that there is an additional. ‘off’ flavor associated with this secondard fermentation. Again, not worth it.
Hold yourselves respectable, fellow wooters, and find other bargains.
What is the MN group? Is there a woot group right here in the tundra?
Fred got a case of this last time - waiting for him to chime in with his verdict. Would he buy it again???
Not an official group, just some wooters who got together to taste some wines. Check out the “World of Woot Wine” tab near the top of the page and you can see discussions about various gatherings (among other things).
Also, Sparky posts a weekly gatherings message on Fridays here in the general discussion thread that lists all the upcoming woot-related gatherings.
One additional voice concurring with the majority of the reviewers. I let it sit for 2 hours (no scientific basis for this) in a decanter. Eight of my friends tried it and all agreed it was a very tasty cab. At $7 a very good QPR.
I guess I’m the contrarian - in for 3. I got a case from the woot-off, and was disappointed it wasn’t in this week’s off.
Yes, it has some minor fizz, but it’s not like we’re talking champagne level here. It comes out easily on decanting, and makes a nice $7 bottle of cab that way.
I actually served one bottle slightly chilled without decanting with Italian food, everyone thought it was the best “lambrusco” they ever had 
for those not wanting to wait, I decant, then shake the decanter hard for about 30 sec’s, about 4 times over 15 minutes, and your ready to go, auto buy for me.
Yep got about 10 at home and bought another just now, if it still for sale I just might grab another.