![]() ![]() Note: These wines were purchased from the Ralph’s Grocery Store in Agoura Hills, California with a 30% mixed six bottle discount. ![]() It was an interesting tasting because even though these wines are marketed as “sweet reds” they are not as sweet as the inexpensive box wines, but should clearly appeal to those used to drinking sweet beverages such as Coke or sweet-tea. In the end we all ranked them in the same order: All the wines were smooth blends, had soft tannins, light-to-medium body, 13.5% alcohol and no complexity. They all finished sweet, but the Cupcake Red Velvet had a slight tartness at the very end. All three had a sweet fruit taste, with the Apothic Red having a heaviness to its sweetness. The other two wines had a slightly fruity bouquet with the Apothic having hints of red licorice. Bill Thompson 2 Glasses, Red Wine Apothic Red wine, Cosentino Winery, Michel Schlumberger Winery Post navigation. Dave was chilling a bottle of 2010 Apothic Red. We had mixed reviews and both Chris and I kindly shared our glass with Heather. The Cupcake Red Velvet had a smokey bouquet that carried through the taste and the long finish. Shane had told Dave it was a dryer Gewurztraminer. We all tasted the wines, discussed them and amazingly came to the same conclusion about each one…something that rarely happens when tasting wine!!! We could discern no significance difference in color or clarity but the difference in aroma was immediately obvious to everyone. The bottles were covered and opened and all the tasters had three glasses in front of them. That’s the background, now here’s how we tasted them. These three brands are said to account for half of the sweet red wine sold in the United States. We picked the three best sellers for our tasting: Apothic Red 2013 ($7.99), Ménage à Tros California Red 2013 ($6.99) and Cupcake Red Velvet 2012 ($7.99). Thus, we had simply never tasted any of these wines that were being marketed as “sweet reds” so the tasting was especially intriguing. We are not overly fond of sweet wines and tend to avoid them. The idea that sweet red wines are quickly rising in popularity in the United Sates is somewhat disturbing and made tasting some notable examples an adventure. market? he describes the enormous growth in sweet red wine sales. In a recent post by the Wine Curmudgen titled Has sweet red wine taken over the U.S. ![]()
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