From Beringer to Bandit: boxed wine puts the cork in two semesters of savings

Bottom of the Barrel: Parting the Red Sea: Manischewitz Concord Grape wine

This month, your esteemed critics were faced with a predicament that has plagued sitcom writers since the beginning of time—namely whether to produce a holiday-themed installment before or after the true day of celebration. Luckily, fulfilling our remaining Kickstarter rewards from last semester’s wildly successful $135 bacchanalia impressed upon us the necessity of delivering this review in advance of Passover. Thus, we have finally brought to fruition Will’s sororal obligation to sample Manischewitz Concord Grape wine.
While France and Israel have both developed robust Kosher wine industries, the Manischewitz bottle is what most American Jews reach for when celebrating Seder or Shabbat. Despite Martin’s preemptive chiding by a fellow Hannaford shopper when purchasing the wine, our consumption took place under decidedly non-ceremonial circumstances. However, we took care to pair our drinking with one of Manischewitz’s other Kosher offerings: Everything Matzah—an essential nosh not only for times of lessened leaven, but also for all 353, 354, 355, 383, 384 or 385 days of the lunar year.
The Passover season also allowed your esteemed critics to indulge their shared passion for musical theater, as the obvious soundtrack to our night’s proceedings was “Fiddler on the Roof.” Though we at first erroneously settled upon the 1995 Anthony Newley rendition, we were quick to correct our mistake and substitute in the exemplary original 1964 cast recording, anchored by legendary thespian Zero Mostel. The emotional roller coaster we rode from “Prologue: Tradition” to “Anatevka” proved the perfect accompaniment to our prolonged consumption of the generously sized bottle.
Though the 1.5L Magnum ($8.99) provided double the usual quantity of wine, its wide neck foiled our normal decanting method with the VinOair. Even without this aerating augmentation, the Vitis labrusca-corn syrup medley manifested itself in a powerfully “grapey” nose and mucilaginous mouthfeel. We immediately had transcultural flashbacks to the Scuppernong debacle of last January 29, but the ritualistic qualities of the Manischewitz proved much more comforting than its similarly sweet cousin. We were then transported even further back to the tweenage joy—real and imagined—of swallowing thimblesworths of “Mani” at bar and bat mitzvahs, dreams of adult beverage adulation whirring in our heads.
Now ready to make good on those earlier aspirations, we find that this wine performed poorly by every single college metric we have developed to date. However lacking in taste the Manischewitz may have been, it more than succeeded in reminding us of the rich cultural heritage of the Jewish people. Recreational Manischewitz use may prove to be unwise, and JSwipe may not pass muster as a digital Yente, but as we neared the end of the bottle, our yearning for connection was satisfied. Chag Sameach! Additional Notes:
Tonight’s Soundtrack: “Fiddler on the Roof” (Original Broadway Cast Recording)Will: “Can my quote be, ‘Could whoever took my boots with yellow laces from Red Brick please them return to me?’”Martin: “If I was an Israeli trap DJ, my name would be ‘Lazer Wolf.’” Nose: 3.6/5Body: 1.8/5Mouthfeel: 1.8/5Legs: 3.6/5Taste: 1.8/5

Bottom of the Barrel: Smooth Sicilian serves a superb summer swan song

Old World grapes always conjure up images of summer nights on the Continent. Tender evenings spent with a loved one in a petite café. Bulls dodged in narrow alleys. Verses writ.Your dear columnists, once the College’s most prominent Ladd-campus-wide-couch-stander-onners, are now seeking to live the good life. This year we will be sampling the finest wines purveyed by our fair town’s finest purveyor of groceries: Hannaford grocery. By finest wines purveyed by our fair town’s finest purveyor of groceries, Hannaford grocery, we mean the finest wines 10 American dollars can buy.
Will—whose notions of wine and wine-drinking have been most unfortunately informed by his reading of Hemingway while too young —initially balked at the idea of buying wine not corked. But as we made our way down the vino aisle, it was almost as if we heard a faint whisper of a Sicilian ciaramedda in the distance when we came across the 2014 Belmondo. The bottle was unassuming with “Terre Siciliane” emblazoned on the front, indicating its origin from the island’s wine region. Overcome with excitement we made our way home to begin the drinking process. In the hallowed halls of our happy home, 17 Cleaveland Street, amidst clouds of man’s best friends —fruit flies—we began our tasting.
The initial opening of the bottle had Justin questioning whether he lacked a sense of smell, but after pouring into our surprisingly adequate stemware (thanks Old Cleave), an aroma arose.
Half the taste of wine comes from its smell, or so we’ve been told. Needless to say, it’s a lot of fun to swirl the wine in the glass before taking a wee sniff. This particular vintage smells of scratch-and-sniff, generic, what’s-the-first-thing-that-comes-to-mind-when-you-think-of-white-wine white wine. This is not a bad thing. The wine smells like white Concord grape juice poured over playground wood chips. This is not a bad thing. The initial taste matches the nose. Flavor comes seconds after the sip. Slightly sweet like a crisp, October apple. Eminently palatable, this 2014 Grigio is more than just a little reminiscent of elementary school cafeterias and Juicy Juice 100% Juice. Vague notions of apricot kick around in the back. Dry, but who doesn’t like their Grigio dry? Against a dark background the wine is clear. Don’t be deterred by the screw top. This beverage is worth buying for those who want to dip their toes into drinking wine, but don’t want to mess up their pedicures.
As the wine flows, our conversation turns inward. It’s weird being a senior. Don’t recommend it. It’s easy to sit in your kitchen and feel weird about your past, present and future while your friends play NBA 2K16 in the living room. Wine pairs well with nostalgia.

Bottom of the Barrel

From Beringer to Bandit: boxed wine puts the cork in two semesters of savings

This piece represents the opinion of the authors:

April 26, 2016

After eight months, 11 columns, 5873 words, 15.4 liters of wine and a grand total of four Bowdoin Orient online comments (Special thanks to “JC Strobaugh,” “Bear Grillis,” “eicrow,” and “Eduquest!”), our illustrious tenure at the Bottom of the Barrel is coming to a close. Though we have prided ourselves on our disruptive approach to collegiate wine criticism, we must also acknowledge that we too stand on the shoulders of giants. Therefore, for our final entry, we would like to offer an homage to Bryce Ervin and Brandon Oullette’s canonical April 17, 2015 installment: “Wine juice boxes: an Ivies alternative to bring our your inner child.” [Note that the following is a cross-platform, hypertextual companion to our celebrated April 25, 2016, Monday night master class “Bottom of the Barrel Presents: An Evening with Martin and Will: Imbibing on a Budget: A Vinophile’s Guide to Ivies.”]

We managed this year to find some metaphorical liquid diamonds in the proverbial rough of Hannaford’s wine aisle, but because of our self-imposed $10 budget constraint, we have also drunk a lot of shit wine. As a result, we have become viticultural virtuosos of jazz-like improvisation, adroitly converting our duds into more palatable blended beverages. Mimosas, sangria, even the exotic kalimotxo (red wine and Coca-Cola) are straight-shooting arrows in our quiver of taste.

However, our literary forefathers enlightened us to the potential for a drinkable Ivies wine that can be consumed unadulterated and without concern for grave glassware-induced injury. In a stunning Shakespearean betrayal, we sojourned to Bootleggers rather than Hannaford for our last dive to the Bottom of the Barrel. The tony wine refrigerator lining the back wall impressed us immediately. Drawn to the hypnotizing hum of properly preserved wine, we soon found exactly what we wanted. Just barely within reach on the top shelf stood two prismatic 1 L Tetra Pack® containers of Bandit® Pinot Grigio and Chardonnay ($7.99). Boxed wine seemed a natural extension of our tendency towards hexahedral beverage consumption, as evidenced by our well-documented Facebook official relationship with Boxed Water®.

Twisting open the conveniently re-sealable plastic lid, we were surprised to find two crisp whites sequestered within the aesthetically pleasing packaging. We expected a wine that claims to have been “born to run” to be revolutionary in all aspects, but perhaps the real act of rebellion was managing to combine extreme mobility with dependably good flavors. We wholeheartedly endorse Bandit® and its myriad of varieties as the key to a safe Dionysian Ivies experience.

Despite our longstanding pecuniary feud with the editorial staff, we would be remiss if we did not thank the Orient for providing us with an occasionally read public platform in which to hone our wine-based bona fides. Look out for our upcoming blog featuring our reviews of the Mongolian delicacy airag.

Tonight’s Soundtrack: “The Sound of Silence” by Simon & Garfunkel (from "The Graduate: Music from the Broadway Comedy").

Will: “I hope this column gets me endorsed for ‘entrepreneurship’ and ‘editorial experience’ on LinkedIn.”

Martin: “Is this column a failure if I still think all white wines taste the same?”

Nose: 2/5
Body: 3/5
Mouthfeel: 4/5
Legs: ?/5
Taste: 4/5

Comments are permanently closed.