Have you ever wondered what a gold medal tastes like? Or how about defeat? They say victory is sweet, but so is eating packets of Sweet & Low. While Ryan was in the oxymoronic state of “dry season” for swimming and attempting to win his own gold this week, I tried to find my answer through wine. I turned to the Fates to find me a new compatible columnar colleague. As the divine trumpets of a passing ambulance were faintly heard from Maine Street, my calls were answered as Sam Karson ’14 sauntered towards me. So now, glasses in hand, Sam and I shall venture forth to review the Casa de Campo 2012 Moscato.
Casa de Campo is a Moscato. Muscat grapes are tucked away in the northeastern region of Piedmont, Italy. The Muscat grape has both red and white varieties, but the Muscato wine is exclusively made from the white grape Muscat Blanc á Petits Grains variety. When wine is made using grapes specifically from the Piedmont region, it may be called a Moscato d’Asti or simply an Asti. However, the Casa de Campo is from Mendoza, Argentina and thus cannot receive such lexiconical labeling. Instead of a fancy name, our wine had an amateur painting of a cow. The artist decided to color the cow green, but apparently abandoned that idea halfway through the process, leaving the depiction of a cow in Astroturf stockings.
The first thing you recognize about the Casa (or as Sam and I like to affectionately call it, “The Big House”) is its rich golden color. It harkens back to memories of Brian Boitano or that Keystone Light you poured down the sink last Saturday when you told everyone you were going to shotgun it.
As we brought the glasses closer to our nostrils, we were hit with strong floral scents, notes of apple, caramel and a slight acidity. The nose, such as that of Owen Wilson, is not particularly strong but is clearly identifiable. The bottle told us we would experience “ripe peaches, citrus notes, and delightful orange blossom perfume.” This Shaun White of a wine, however, did not perform as we had hoped and expected it to.
Moving our glasses deftly to our expectant lips, we noticed a slight effervescence swirling in the wine. Was this the promise of oeniphilial bliss or just an Alka-Seltzer related ploy? We allowed the golden vino to pass across our trembling tongues, we made eye contact, and after a few obligatory raises of the eyebrows we both simultaneously confessed that this wine was not very good. The first gustatory feature we recognized was the overwhelming sweetness of this wine. We also noticed flavors of apple and a touch of the peach we were promised in the nose. The wine is tannin-less and has little flavor to cut through its saccharinity. As we sipped this libation, we slowly came to the conclusion that we might just be drinking expired apple juice that had been mislabeled. But as far as expired apple juice goes, this isn’t too bad.
The wine’s mouthfeel supports our hypothesis that we are not actually drinking wine. The juice is syrupy with a light bubble that skates across the tongue as daintily as gold medal-winning and all-American hero Michelle Kwan.
It finishes with a whirlwind amalgamation of high-fructose corn syrup and that Keystone Light you poured out before. If you like Welch’s and want to get some sweet sex syrup for Valentine’s Day, look no further than Casa de Campo. As the sagacious Jeffrey “Roscoe Dash” Johnson Jr. once said “Imma sip Moscato, you gon’ lose dem pants.”
Additional Notes
Sam: Great for wet season!
Dan: Imma pour this on my waffles.
Nose: 2/5
Mouthfeel: 1/5
Taste as a wine: 1/5
Taste as a juice: 3/5
Serve with the bitterness of Olympic defeat. $8.99 at Bootlegger’s.