Gouguenheim

Gouguenheim was one of the real stand-out hits of the night. A spicy Malbec that Brown Bagger Mike Brand picked up at the Silver Lake Wine Store Gouguenheim was a real crowdpleaser. It was a Malbec whose spicy, peppery notes had rounded off some allowing some of the real darkfruit flavors to come out.

Again, like the other Malbecs, the Gouguenheim benefitted with food especially the dark chocolate which helped some of its subtleties out.

An interesting thing about this wine: its price. Brown Bagger Mike consistently picks up delicious wines for these events, and every time they cost 13 dollars with tax out the door. Mike goes in and talks to his friendly Silver Lake Wine store guy, says I need a delicious wine from "X" region for 12.99 or less. And guess what? He gets a wine for 12.99 - 13 bucks.

Now there is nothing wrong with this. Silver Lake Wine is a great wine shop with tons of bargains from wineries overlooked by the big buyers. In other words, it is a very well curated shop, but I doubt it will ever have anything for less than 10 bucks - which is the Brown Bag Holy Grail.

10 to 13 could very well just be a sweet spot for wines. With rising labor costs, fuel costs, and land costs, delicious wines under ten bucks might be a thing of the past like buggy whips and manual typewriters.

All that said Gouguenheim is a really satisfying wine and would be a great thing to bring to a friend's house who is cooking you dinner - especially when they're making red friendly foods. If you do pick up a bottle of it for such an occasion bring some dark chocolate or a blue cheese to help bring this wine's flavours out and show off what it can do.

We learned from our Argentina night that the Argentine wines benefit from a little pro-active wine drinking - ie., be smart what you pair it with.

RATING: 3 Screwcaps
LABEL: Gouguenheim
GRAPE: Malbec
PRICE: 12.99 - 13 bucks out the door at Silver Lake Wine