What I Drank With Dinner (WIDWD)

Last night my wife prepared a wonderful dinner that included pork shoulder slow cooked in an amazing tomatillo sauce served over basmati rice and garnished with shredded cheese, chopped tomatoes, and fresh cilantro. After tasting a spoonful of the sauce, I headed down to the cellar and started looking around for a bottle that would complement the meal.

As I was searching around for a tempranillo or garnacha, I happened to pull out a bottle of Novelty Hill 2004 Red Wine. I remembered purchasing this bottle when visiting Novelty Hill a couple of months ago, as I thought it would make for a decent table wine some night.

As you can see in the photos I took of the front and back labels (apologies for the drip stains), the bottle gave no indication as to what varietals comprised this wine, only its alcohol content as required by law (14.1%).

I tried to think back to my visit to recall what this wine might be, but for the life of me, I could not remember. Being curious, I brought the bottle upstairs to see if I could locate a description on the Novelty Hill web site, thus totally distracting me from my original pursuit.

Little did I know what an exercise in futility this would become.

With my wife begging me to get our kids to the table, I finally located the '04 Red Wine on the Novelty Hill web site, only to be presented with a page that stated "description to come". Their web page also showed a picture of the bottle with a "SOLD OUT" label across its front. My frustration increased with each step I took trying to find out what was in this wine. Meanwhile, I had yet to find a bottle to go with dinner and the kids still needed their hands washed.

So, while getting them washed up and to the table, I started wondering why Novelty Hill would make it so difficult for their customers to know what was in their bottle of wine.

To be fair, they provided tasting notes at their winery, but to not make these available on their web site suggests someone dropped the ball. Furthermore, the fact that they used some generic marketing spin on the back label suggests this wine was most likely concocted at the last minute prior to a bottling run (thus avoiding the need to print any customized labels).

Don't get me wrong. I am not trying to single out Novelty Hill here, but am merely using them as an example of what a missed opportunity this creates for a winery trying to connect folks to their wine. Regardless of the price you pay for any bottle, I believe you, as a consumer, are entitled to knowing what a wine is comprised of and even better what vineyards the grapes were sourced from.

Granted, my rant on this post is probably heavily influenced by my reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, an insightful book on the various food chains responsible for providing us with our meals. As much as I want to know where my food comes from and what's in it, I want to know the same about my wine! I am not alone in this regard, as more and more folks are starting to ask, "what am I drinking?".

So, what wine did we end up pairing with our meal?

Well, as you might have guessed, I couldn't let it go and had to pop the Novelty Hill 2004 Red Wine in order to find out what was in it. I have yet to confirm by calling the winery, but after tasting a small glass deduced that it is probably a cab/merlot blend with maybe some syrah thrown in as well. It was far too heavy for the pork we were having, therefore we set it aside and decided to finish the burgundy we had on the previous night with another delicious slow cooked meal, coq que vin. As would be expected of a French pinot noir, the wine went very well with the pork shoulder in tomatillo sauce. And the Novelty Hill provided for a nice glass afterward for dessert.

While this post deviated somewhat from its original intent, I thought it would be worthwhile to share my experience with a wine that was successful at keeping its origins secret. If you have had similar experiences or an opinion on wine labeling, please share in the comment section.

And as always, thanks for listening. I feel much better now. :-)