If you've read much of my previous work on this blog, you know that I am probably as likely to use Yellow Tail as the punchline of a joke as I am to actually drink it. I, like most people my age, spent my time drinking the kangaroo labeled wine during my poor college years and early twenties. I was recently approached about hosting a local tasting for a national online Shiraz tasting event featuring Yellow Tail Reserve, I decided that I would suspend my previous opinions of YT and give it a shot. The event was organized by the good folks at WineTwits, and was a blind tasting of four different Shiraz wines, one of which was Yellow Tail Reserve, the rest of the wines were a mystery.
WineTwits is an online wine community site that revolves around Twitter. One aspect of the site revolves around events, giving event organizers a place to organize tweets surrounding the event. This event stepped that up a notch, with a live video feed of Doug Frost, a Master Sommelier and Master of Wine, and Yellow Tail owner John Casella at the live event in Boston. The event was by invitation only, and featured groups across the country, including Austin, Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston, and of course my event in Prosser, Washington.
The format of the event was very interesting, with each group able to autonomously go through the tasting and talk amongst themselves, and then tweet their impressions of each wine. The video feed offered some additional input about what was being said at the different locations, as well as some informative comments from Mr. Frost. My one complaint about the video feed was that it felt a little like "Wine Tasting For Dummies", with a full crash course in beginning tasting, as well as what we should be experiencing in the wines. Maybe that was the intent, as this group was somewhat mixed regarding their background. I'm sure the information was very useful for those who were not experienced as tasters, but our group was primarily made up of experienced wine people, and it felt a bit like we were back in kindergarten. Despite that complaint, I enjoyed having the video feel to go along with the event, and not just because my good friend Amanda Maynard of Wineing Woman fame was on the feed of the live event in Boston, and it felt like we were hanging out again.
The Wines
The real focus of the event was the wines, which varied greatly in price, and in drinkability. I have rarely been at a tasting where a wine was as universally panned and slammed as the first wine in the blind tasting was.
Wine No. 1 – 2007 Archetype Shiraz – Barossa, Australia – $15
Descriptions of this wine seemed to center around burned coffee, with an acrid coffee smell jumping out on the nose. Also hints of brine, a little meaty aroma, and some earth. The palate was thin, with some bramble fruits. Not much going on with this one, and our panel, and most of the other comments I saw on Twitter, were almost totally negative. The wine also seemed to get worse the longer we had it open, as every time I went back to the wine I was more put off by it.
Wine No. 2 – 2008 Marquis Philips Shiraz – McLaren Vale, Australia – $13
The nose on this wine was very hot, with dried fruit aromas, especially cranberry. I also got a touch of barnyard with this wine. More heat on the palate, jammy dark fruits, decent acid, and some detectable residual sugar. I didn't like this wine, as it represents everything that has turned me off to Aussie Shiraz in the past, but I am sure that there are some who would enjoy the semi-sweet jammy flavors of the wine. The alcohol, not surprisingly, came in at 16% on this one.
Wine No. 3 – 2006 D' Arenberg The Dead Arm Shiraz – McLaren Vale, Australia – $60
This one was the first wine to really stand out to me. None of us were surprised to learn that it was the most expensive wine that we tasted, as it was pretty easily the group favorite. Anise, menthol, red fruit and a little tar made appearances on the nose, with some bright dark fruit notes and nice acid filling out the palate. The wine was balanced and drank well. I enjoyed this wine, although there are wines that I would rather spend $60 on, so I probably wouldn't purchase it in the future. Still, I think this is definitely a nice wine, and worth a try.
Wine No. 4 – 2008 Yellow Tail Reserve Shiraz – Southeastern Australia – $11
This wine performed very well at our tasting. It seemed like we had a consensus among our tasting group that this was the second favorite among the wines that we tried, and at $11 it was a much better value than The Dead Arm. The nose was dominated by dark fruits and oaky vanilla notes, with some nice spicy components. The palate was pleasantly drinkable, with a full body and more dark fruit and pepper coming through. There wasn't much to the wine in the way of acidity. At $11 this wine is definitely worth taking a shot on as a Tuesday night wine.
The Finish
I think that the organizers of the event did a great job of putting everything together. The WineTwits folks, David Frost, and John Casella all made this a very enjoyable event. The event was fun, and generated a lot of great conversation. I really preferred this format to the typical global Twitter tasting, where everyone madly tweets back and forth about the wines in completely isolated environments. Wine is a social beverage, and this event really gave the participants the ability to combine real personal interaction with the Twitter tasting aspect.
For Yellow Tail, I think the event was a home run. They got exactly what they wanted out of the event. They stood their wine up against more expensive wines, and the wine performed pretty well. They showed that their reserve wines are a good value, and they had the opportunity to demonstrate this to at least some people who have not typically been fans of their wines.
I look forward to seeing more of this type of event in the future. I think that on a longer timeline, this type of tasting will replace the more free-for-all style of Twitter events, as the social aspects are so much more enjoyable, and the interaction more valuable.
Thanks to WineTwits and Yellow Tail for organizing the event and supplying the wines, and to Mercer Estates Winery for hosting our local gathering.
Hey Ben,
I participated in this myself in another tasting group. I actually enjoyed wine #1 the most… but maybe that’s just me. I think I might have been the only one who did – though I tasted it considerably later than the rest of my group… perhaps I should just quit the wine business now
#2, way too much jam, #3 I thought the alcohol was not very well blended, it reminded me a bit of whiskey and whiskey at my Yellow Tail wine tasting isn’t exactly what I was looking for and it definitely wasn’t worth $60.
Unfortunately, I think the strategy of placing Yellow Tail at the end was a bad one. To me, this just tasted completely blah, especially after the prominent flavors I got off the rest – it had absolutely not personality. At $11/bottle, I think there are a lot better wines you could buy.. then again, even as a poor college student I was put off by the original Yellow Tail and this, to me, didn’t seem to be too far from where I remembered it…even before revealing the wines, it was pretty obvious. In all fairness, there were a few in the group who enjoyed the wine and our group consisted of mostly general consumers so I think Yellow Tail hit it’s target market there…
Just my two cents
Thanks Constance. Great to get the perspective of one of the other group participants. I think your comments just go to show how unique everyone’s palates are. There are no right answers or wrong answers, just what you think about the wine.
I really did not like it at all. Totally agree on number 2. I guess I didn’t notice number 3 being out of balance with the alcohol, but maybe number 2 had dumbed down my perception of alcohol. Agreed that I wouldn’t pay $60 for it. On the Yellow Tail, I still feel like the QPR was not bad for the wine. I personally don’t choose Shiraz when I’m looking to buy wine, so I wouldn’t say that I would purchase the wine, but if you are into that, then I thought the YT performed pretty well. My comments were definitely based on how I think the wine would be received by the general public, and I think that a lot of people would be happy with their purchase at that price.
On number 1, we definitely had much different experiences with the wine.
Constance, I actually really liked the Archetype a lot, too. But I honestly thought the Dead Arm was heavenly, and that was before we knew what it was (although we all guessed it was.) I agree with you, too, Ben. I think future online tastings will be much better in a format like this.
Crap. I guess I should’ve moved some things around so I could participate. They sent me an invite, but I was getting in from fabulous Indianapolis, and had a bitchin’ GA/FL party to put together (disgustingly delicious video out on YouTube).
Not so much that I missed tasting the wines, but that I missed an opportunity to chat with you, Sam, and Amanda!
Hope you’re thriving in WA, buddy!
Oh, and Constance, of course
That’s interesting. I wonder if there was just something wrong with out bottle of Archetype, because I didn’t feel like it was just a little bad, it was really not enjoyable at all.
Totally dude, we would have loved to have you on board with us. It was a lot of fun.
You know, I’ve seen in Wine Spectator or some other such tome that the Yellow Tail Reserve at around $11 is actually a very good buy for what it is. But I just can’t get over the rest of the Yellow Tail I’ve had in the past enough to try it.
A few weeks ago I went to a political meet-and-greet (where the wine is usually cheap and the snack trays are from Costco!), and the wine was the super cheap Yellow Tail, you know the $6 a bottle ones. And b/c there was no other wine there, I had one little ol’ glass of the stuff. I got A.Pounding.Headache. that night, which then lasted for 2 whole days — I am not making that up. That’s when I said to myself, “Never again, Yellowtail, never again.”
I can understand that. I have seriously spent the last several years saying nothing positive about YT, but this stuff was drinkable. That’s not to say that it wouldn’t still give you a headache though. Maybe you are allergic to MegaPurple.
Hey, thanks for the shout out, Ben. T’was a fun event to have participated in.