It’s Wine Thursday!

Every Thursday,

we’ll post a new wine review…

just in time for your weekend

Since launching Pat The Wine Guy two years ago,

we’ve gotten into the habit of not getting into a habit.

We’ve posted wine reviews,

not on a regular schedule,

but whenever we got around to it.

There’s a word for such behavior:  “random”.

Now, we’ve got a plan and we’re sticking to it. 

We’re committing to a new review every Thursday

to help you find a good bottle

for Thursday PM, Friday and beyond

We’re kicking off Wine Thursday!

with…the Battle of the Red Blends

At PTWG, we recommend wine

that retails for between $10-$30. 

In that price range,

“red blend” is by far your favorite category

We hear it over and over:  “My go-to is a red blend.” 

Makes sense.  There’s a lot of value

on that red blend shelf. 

We blind-tasted four popular red blends

ranging in price from about $12 to $22

(unless you’re at Costco where,

if you can find the wine, it will be considerably cheaper) 

The contenders:  Dunham Trutina, Nine Hats,

Tamarack Firehouse Red

and Chateau Ste Michelle Indian Wells.

They all have their merits. 

But there can only be one winner. 

And four out of our five tasters picked…

Chateau Ste Michelle

2015 Indian Wells Red Blend 

 I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. 

Chateau Ste Michelle has been producing

good bang-for-the-buck wines for a long time. 

But we were surprised by the easy “drinkability”

of this predominately Syrah-Merlot blend. 

I expected this would be just another one of those

flabby red fruit bombs…but no. 

This wine was remarkably well balanced.

You’ll bump into this wine all over the place…

Safeway, Fred Meyer, Bale’s Thriftway

(surprisingly, NOT at Trader Joe’s)

for around $12-$17. 

Then there’s Costco which carries this

for the low, low price of $9.99!

Next week,

we’ll tell you which red blend

was a close runner up.

See you next Wine Thursday!