Corvelia - 2016 red blend [Paso Robles, CA]

A fun part of writing this blog is trying new, random things on a whim. Today's wine I grabbed at Trader Joe's a few weeks back, mostly purchased since it was at the right price point for an "everyday" wine - $9.99. It's called "Corvelia", and is a California wine from the Paso Robles region in south-central California.

But that's kind of all the information we have. Some bottles of wine have tons of details on the label - grape blends, information about the vineyards, who made them, their family history, tasting notes, etc. Some don't. This one doesn't. All it says on the back of the bottle is "v. 2016. Corvelia red wine. A unique blend of grapes, sustainably grown and harvested from the rolling hills of Paso Robles."

It's not unusual for some wines not to provide this specific information. This could be for a variety of reasons: maybe they don't want you to know that there's 15 different grapes in there; or maybe they bought refuse grapes from a top-tier vineyard (ala Trader Joe's house blends) and that vineyard doesn't want you to know that their $100-a-bottle grapes are available for a tenth of that price. This is common practice, and there's nothing terribly shady about it.

So let's check it out. It's a blood red in the glass, and candles clear. My camera does not pick up red that well through light, so I may stop candling wines for these posts. It's not purple, despite the below picture.

The wine produces a lively aroma of tannins - a spicy aroma. The wine itself very thick, with a velvety texture that coats the mouth. Flavor-wise, I'm detecting some leather and tobacco and maybe some plum. Big burst of wood. Not a lot of brightness or jamminess - all deep, dark flavors. The finish has some smoke, too, with a tiny metallic tinge on the aftertaste. This metallic note lasts for quite a while after swallowing.

I think this is sort of what "normal" wine drinkers would expect to call a "strong" wine...not strong in terms of alcohol (we would call that "hot" in the wine business) but strong in terms of intensity of flavor. Wine that has strong, aggressive flavoring - especially of unfinished alcohol - is sometimes called "brawny" by wine professionals. It's a quality you want to avoid in fine wines, but for everyday wines under $10, it's not wholly unexpected. As such, I have a feeling this'll stand up to whatever dish you throw at it, and in terms of pairing, I had this with my famous homemade sriracha and pepper-jack mac n' cheese. So give this a try!