Apothic Red, California Wine

Apothic Red

I am not a wine connoisseur.  But, not quite as bad as: if it’s wet I’ll drink it, although as the evening wears on, my standards go down like the setting sun.  I did pour a wine out years ago and still harbor regrets.

Still, even a casual inebriate has favorites and I’ve written about a few.

A Blend of Zinfandel, Syrah, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon grapes, Apothic Red may be the richest immediately satisfying wine I’ve tasted in years.  Beautiful nose, and the flavor is ripe with berries and a very noticeable spot of vanilla. 

Alcohol content is 13.5% and it is a dry red, but dry can mean so many things.  Many, dry reds are so heavy on tannins, the first swallow is as if your throat just got a sandpaper massage.  Not so with Apothic Red.  Full flavored, yet so silky smooth and mellow on the finish.

You’ll be happy to know Apothic Red is priced from $6.50 to $9 per bottle.  At those prices, stock up for backyard parties and buy a few extras to tuck under your arm for dinner invites.

But, you’re bound to ask, what’s with the name?  Apothic?  My guess is it has the same roots as apothecary, or chemist, or what we in the U.S. call a pharmacy.  E.J. Gallo, (in Modesto), California’s largest wine exporter (and producer of Apothic wines) claims it was a mysterious 13th Century place where wine was aged.

The bottle I drank was 2015, and not what I think of as an aged wine.  But, these days when subdivisions carry names like Nine Oaks, with nary an oak tree in sight, or you live on Beaver Trail Road, where the closest beavers are two hundred miles distant, modern names apparently don’t have to be authentic, as long as they sound very cool and classically rich.  “Just moved into my home on Scum Pond View.”  Nope, doesn’t tantalize the dream of moving up in the world.  Better to call it “Walden Pond Estates.”

Apothic makes various styles of both red and white.  Tonight I also tried Apothic Dark, which is dry enough to make you dig a well with your bare hands in a desperate search for water.

It will also stand up to roasted wild boar that is still pissed about being roasted. Don’t mean to offer my taste buds as proof of what you should drink.  I do have friends who like to feel the dust on their tongue after a couple of swallows. Apothic Dark will do the trick.

But, let’s take a step back and talk about grapes. Did you realize there are upwards of 10,000 varieties of the delicious fruit of the vine?  I’ll give my three faithful readers a break and worship at the temple of brevity, to talk about only the grapes in Apothic wine and even then only enough to provide polite cocktail party conversation.

Heard of Noble Grapes?  Those are the varieties most planted in wine regions around the world.  I’m told there are only eighteen of these, and Apothic wines blend three of them:  Syrah, Merlot, and Cab.  What about Zinfandel?  Zinfandel (and Primitivo) are similar to Grenache, also a Noble Grape.  All of these are varieties of red grapes.

The value of wine is in the tasting, so I won’t go into the specifics of what you can expect of each variety of grape.  I’ve had Primitivos that were heaven on the tongue, while others were lacking.  Zinfandel?  Sweet, right?  Depends on when the grapes are picked and whether or not  the juice is ‘aged dry’, meaning left to ferment until the last bit of sugar is transformed into alcohol. 

Here’s a primer for you:

White wines, can be both sweet or dry or in between and sometimes white wines are produced from red grapes, what the French call Blanc de Noir, or white from black.  Wine skins and seeds give the wine it’s color.  Separate the juice right away and you have white wine.  Yes, I know some grapes are white, but typically, juice for white wine is not fermented with the skins and seeds.

Rose wines, are left with the skins for a short time.

Red wines?  You guessed it!

Areas where Wine was produced in antiquity

Back to Apothic.  Buy some, try some.  I love what I call the romance of wine. As early as 6000 BCE/BC people have fermented grapes!  You can drink it and talk about it and delve into the intricacies of temperature and soil and regions and types of grapes and wine’s history!  Knowing about wine is a full time job.  Now open that bottle of Apothic and get started!