When the wine looks: 19 Crimes provides gustatory, if not visual, pleasure

Bottom of the Barrel: Top of the barrel: Bertani Amarone makes Kickstarter dreams come true

Despite Bernie Sanders' best efforts, casino capitalism still reigns supreme in the world of collegiate wine criticism. Thanks to the generous soft money donations to our Kickstarter (SuperPAC), we found ourselves saddled with the troublesome burden of spending $135 on one bottle of wine. Freed from the tyranny of the Powers-that-be on the Orient editorial staff, we embarked upon a glorious odyssey.
Hannaford, with its plebeian $29.35 cap on wine prices, could not service our prodigious need. We looked instead to the West, traveling to the distant environs of Freeport’s Bow Street Market. Unfortunately, our journey eerily paralleled the opening pages of Stephen King’s “The Mist.” Conor Tillinghast, our normally capable chauffer, decided to take the “back route” to Freeport—inadvertently plunging us into a haze reminiscent of an Epicurial milieu. With great courage, your esteemed critics ventured forth.
After a perilous 10-minute journey, we were rewarded with the Bow Street Market’s expertly curated back-room liquor department. We inspected the wares and, after much searching, chanced upon Bertani’s 2009 Amarone della Valpolicella—priced at a paltry $114. Emboldened by the store’s gracious cashier, we returned to Brunswick on the more orthodox freeway.
Comfortably settled in Yellow House, our first order of business was to let the wine breathe. CNN’s pre-debate coverage helped pass the half hour before we could finally imbibe our ill-gotten gains. As Lincoln Chaffee confusedly ambled upon stage, so we too ventured into a realm to which we were not sure we belonged.
A hearty pour into our trusty mason jars presented a rich velvety color heretofore obscured by Beltani’s dark-horse of a bottle. Will’s quick swish revealed the finest legs your humble critics have yet to observe. Sturdy, thick, and robust, they provided the perfect support for the full-body that greeted us upon our first taste.
What can you say about a wine that has it all? Like a 7-layered dip, each quaff imparted a multitude of distinct, yet well-blended flavors. A sweet fruity greeting gave way to a smoky, almost spicy undertone as the wine sojourned through our oral cavities. To put it bluntly, we felt the Bern. Maybe even a little Chaffee. Despite the Amarone’s overwhelming dryness, we couldn’t help but reach for more after every delectable sip.
At this point, Martin decided to update his MacBook to OS X 10.11 “El Capital” so as to remove any and all technological distractions. Even with this impediment to our note-taking abilities, the complexities of Bertani’s offering were permanently imprinted upon both of our consciousnesses. Long after we finished, this wine ignited within us a lingering warmth—the kind of warmth that only money can buy. We felt like a proverbial Scrooge Mcduck, diving into a proverbial pile of gold coins.
Readers have corked up our mailbox, clamoring to know the answer to one simple question: was it worth it? In a word, yes. In more words, if we asked to spend $114 dollars of other people’s money at Bow Street Market for a Tuesday night debate companion, we would have a hard time saying no.
Additional Notes:
Tonight’s Soundtrack: Anderson Cooper’s dulcet tones and asinine questions
Will: “This is great. Let’s launch Kickstarters every week ad nauseam.”
Martin: “I feel like Moses entering the Promised Land. But just like him, I know I won’t be here next week.”
Nose: 5/5
Body: 5/5
Mouthfeel: 5/5
Legs: 5/5
Taste: 5/5
We would like to thank our wonderful Kickstarter supporters and we look forward to delivering your rewards soon.

Bottom of the Barrel: Jug-gling savings and satisfaction: Carlo Rossi burgundy offers viticultural utilitarianism

Bottom of the Barrel

When the wine looks: 19 Crimes provides gustatory, if not visual, pleasure

This piece represents the opinion of the authors:

October 30, 2015

After the Bertani-fueled Bacchanalia of our last installment, your esteemed critics have returned to their roots and re-immersed themselves in college culture. With a heavy heart, we reinstated our $10 price cap and began plumbing the depths of discount wine aisles so that you, our readers, need not.

The provincial confines of Hannaford, having grown too claustrophobic for our newly enlarged stature, necessitated looking elsewhere for an appropriately thematic bottle for this holiday season.

Bootleggers was more than happy to oblige our needs. Out of many harrowing options, it was the arresting visage on a bottle of 19 Crimes — an Australian Cabernet Sauvignon — that penetrated our souls, commanding us to end our search.

Our choice left with more questions than the bottle could hope to answer. Who was this Jeremiah O’Donovan, whose gruesome countenance adorned the wrapper? What crimes had he committed that sentenced him to stare for eternity at unsuspecting wine connoisseurs? What scopophilic pleasure could he hope to attain as he watched us quaff this reasonably priced Cabernet? The opaque surface of the bottle revealed little about its contents, and we decided to flex the muscles of our well-developed liberal arts education. Our research commenced.

Despite the wine’s modest price tag, the 19 Crimes website revealed an enterprise with an outsized marketing budget. We were treated to a four-minute video — which might favorably be compared to a failed pilot for an AMC period drama — explaining the spiritual roots of the wine. Jacob Russell ’17 praised the piece’s historical accuracy, stating, “I liked the epaulettes.”

The winery wholeheartedly embraces its country’s dubious heritage as a dumping ground for British undesirables. As we learned, the Powers of the Crown established a list of 19 crimes whose committal would result in “punishment by transportation” to the Southern Hemisphere. The list included such grievous offenses as stealing fish, destroying tree roots and impersonating an Egyptian.

Fortunately, the only crime we committed (besides stooping to use an easy joke) was a getting a killer deal. 19 Crimes punches above its $9.99 weight class, presumably because it is normally sells in the mid teens. Its svelte body and fruity, occasionally “jammy,” overtones lead us to rank this Cab Sav as one of our most drinkable budget wines. The smell and taste evoked the Platonic ideal of a red wine.

The bottle’s back label boasts that 19 Crimes is “wonderful paired with a scheme for an evening’s escape,” but we had to content ourselves with a few sheets of “everything” matzo. The unleavened bread accentuated notes of currants and other assorted berries in the wine, as well as lingering hints of what can only be described as “fiber.”

The journey down under went more smoothly than expected, and we’d be willing to accept punishment by transportation any day for drinking a wine of such good value.

Additional Notes:
Tonight’s Soundtrack: “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah”
Martin: “I don’t like being accused of a crime by an inanimate object.”
Will: “It’s very fruity, kind of like a…grape?”

Nose: 3.5/5
Body: 2/5
Mouthfeel: 2.5/5
Legs: 4/5
Taste: 3.5/5

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