I can’t imagine anyone under the age of 60 not being embarrassed being seen with this bottle in their supermarket basket; it just screams ostentatious, what with the heavy embossed glass and old school gold capsule… and then there’s the label itself, which looks like a bargain-bin Mexican circus flyer and not even remotely like modern packaging. Still, what’s in a package?The color’s beautiful, far richer and darker than you’d expect from a nominally pink wine. For better or worse, though, the color is a near match for Hawaiian Punch, a favorite children’s sugar-water from the 1970s that Donny and Marie Osmond used to pimp when I was young. Great, not only is the bottle naff, but it’s like I’m back in short pants with a sippy cup again. Sigh.Anyhow, if such a thing as strawberry floor wax exists, then surely it smells like this. Scratch that, it smells like Soviet bloc “strawberry” ice cream dreamed up in an East German cooperative, manufactured from apples and Bulgarian grapes. It is, however, enchanting in its oddness, dredging up memories I’m absolutely sure aren’t mine of Russian tea rooms with small cakes that appear more painted than frosted.Ungodly huge in the mouth, the taste of the wine takes a hard right turn towards the medicinal: St Joseph’s orange-flavored aspirin (you know, for kids!) and prescription cough syrup, all cranberries, alcohol, and unpronounceable molecules promising relief from the ague. It’s all bone dry, creeping out ever so slowly on mineral feet, blood orange rind and candied lemon peel, gentle clover honey and all the time in the world to appreciate what just went down.Honestly, wines like this make me despair that we’ll never get it right in the New World. As much as I love a Susana Balbo rosé of malbec, Bonny Doon’s vin gris de Cigare, or any number of New World pinks, they seem, well, works in progress compared to this wine. What’s taking us so long?Chateau de Trinquevedel
Price: $20
Closure: Cork