Fetish Wines 2005 Playmates

We just recently brought this wine into our stores. It is a classic French Southern Rhone blend of Grenache, Shiraz, and Mataro but made in the Barossa Valley of Australia. Wait. What? Isn't the Southern Rhone blend Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvedre? You are absolutely correct!

Mataro is what the Australian's call Mourvedre and Shiraz is what the Australian's call Syrah. This wine is classic New World with the Aussie's love of fruit with a good balance of alcohol and tannins.

A deep hued wine with nice dark berries and cherries, a hint of vanilla, and spice. It has a good mid palate, nice balance, and a lingering finish. All of this along with the wine label definitely makes this a sexy wine. Very nice!

-H

How to describe a wine

I manage part time at a wine bar here in Houston, Uptown Park's The Tasting Room. We generally sell 12-15 wines by the glass. We break the choices down into red, white, sparkling, dessert, and a usually a couple of Sommelier Picks.

When describing a wine you generally want to talk about 3 things:

• Body - light, medium, full
• Sweetness (or lack of) - sweet, off-sweet, off-dry, dry
• Flavor - usually fruits but can include many other flavors too like herbs and spices too
  

If you know these 3 things about a wine, you can pretty much describe any wine in the world and the person you are describing it to will be able to tell if they'd like that particular wine.