**A Wine Tasting Experience: Exploring Natural Wines from Around the World**

As we embark on this wine tasting journey, we're excited to explore natural wines from around the world. From Morocco to Italy, and everything in between, we'll delve into the unique characteristics of each wine, and what makes them special.

**First up, we have Sorako from Morocco**

Our first wine is a Sorako from Morocco, produced by Talvin and Along Grillo. We were intrigued by this wine after reading about the partnership that brought it to our attention. The label was unfamiliar to us, but we were eager to try something new. The result was a Syrah-style wine with a dark, rich color. The aroma is meaty and savory, with notes of rosemary and a hint of fruitiness. We were surprised by how much we enjoyed this wine, especially considering its rarity from Morocco. It's clear that the winemakers have succeeded in creating a wine that meets our expectations of what Syrah should be.

**Next, we have Dochetto**

Our second wine is a classic Dochetto, imported by Skernick. We were excited to try this wine, knowing it was an important brand for us. The label checks all the right boxes – classic, elegant, and professional. When we take a sniff, we're greeted with aromas of dark fruit, leather, and a hint of cedar. The taste is rich and ripe, with well-balanced tannins that leave our mouths dry. This is exactly what we expected from a Dochetto, and we're impressed by its consistency.

**Numero Uno: Vaca Rasa**

Our final wine is a signed Caillou from Vacaras, imported by Kermit Lynch. We were excited to try this wine, knowing it was a top-quality product. The label is understated, but the wine's elegance shines through in every glass. When we pour ourselves a glass, we're treated to a rich, full-bodied wine with a deep ruby color. The aroma is complex and old-world, with notes of tapenade, black olive, and white pepper. As we sip, we notice a subtle "mousy" quality that's both fascinating and delicious.

**The Joy of Natural Wines**

One of the things we love about natural wines is how much they can surprise us. By looking at the labels alone, we're able to get a sense of what to expect from each wine. But it's only when we taste them that the real magic happens. The more we drink, the better we become at appreciating these wines. We accumulate knowledge and develop our own relationships with each wine, which is essential for truly enjoying them.

As we wrap up this tasting experience, we're reminded of the importance of exploring new wines and taking risks. Wine is a journey, not a destination – and there's always something to be discovered around every corner. So, don't be afraid to try something new and uncharted. You never know what amazing flavors you might discover!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enI mean the biggest deal breaker with this wine is that it just says California appellation right I know nothing about the producer that's a big huge red flag for me it should be for you but all of that together spells Doom and Gloom to me just kind of rope me into talking a whole bunch you know I'm not naked I don't want to be see look at this so today we have six wines here in front of us and I'm gonna try to see if the labels hold up to the actual wine inside of the bottles and then we're gonna taste the wines to see how close I got so the goal of today is to teach you how to read the label so you know more about the wine that's actually inside the bottle you know the really confusing part about wine is that you actually have to know something about wine to actually kind of decipher and weed your way through this whole kind of crazy system so I've divided the wines into a couple of categories we have what we're calling the new world and then we have old world and then we kind of sort of have like this hybrid thing going on here new world labels tend to lead with grape varietals so it'll tell you which grape that you're actually consuming or what's actually in the bottle when we generally talk about New World Wines those are wines that are fruit forward they tend to grow from warmer places so think of South America America Australia those types of places and when we talk about old world we're talking about Europe traditionally they actually talk about the great from a place and then this kind of hybrid kind of has both it tells you the grape and it also is named after a place so we're going to take a look at some of the labels now but we're going to start with the Appalachian and region so first up we have the goat Pablo just red wine from Spain grenacha it looks bigger than most bottles but looking at the label it doesn't really tell me much just not giving in any way just has the name and some artwork the first thing is like where is it from but as far as region I know that we're in Spain it's a trend that I'm starting to see now where a lot of wines don't have much information on the front the key is that they want you to pick it up they want you to look at it so you're going to turn it around and find out more about It ultimately where the grapes are picked and harvested matter the most so next up this is the dinkigo this is called The Violet Swell this is from the Redwood Valley in California being more specific about where the grapes come from you get more control over what's happening with the grapes so this wine is from California but it's also from the Redwood Valley and so you know that at least 85 percent of the grapes are coming from that particular Valley next up is tuck stock jumper when I look at the region and it just says USA and then wine of California in the back it doesn't give me great hope that this wine would be of great quality which we talked about location location location if it had a Vineyard if it had a region I would think that it would be better quality it might do the job but you know I'm not real sure if it's something that I would pick up off the shelf and want to purchase but we don't know anything about it because the true taste is what's inside the bottle so next up is an old world wine I'm sure that you can tell just by looking at it this is a dochetta the Alba so the region is Alba it's docetto from Alba and the pimonte region of Italy so right there will automatically we know exactly where we're at here you see the name of the place underneath this is the doc which is the governing body that controls this particular growing region it's saying that this name needs to be protected and these are the rules of what you can be grown there how long they can be aged and the style of which the wine is made you see here there's a little doc ribbon here just to confirm and let everybody know that this is coming from malba so next up if you haven't guessed another example of an old war wine here this is and this is from the Rhone region of France in an appellation called balkarus in France the governing body is called Appalachian de control a so we shorten that to AOC so you'll see vacaras on the label here so the tricky part is is that it tells you the region but it doesn't tell you anything about the grapes so you have to know something about that particular region to understand what grapes are being used all of this information is readily available you know everybody has a smartphone in their pocket I feel like if you're in a store if they're not busy and someone can help you I'm sure that they would much rather you talk to them the idea is is that they're not an expert in your taste they're just a tour guide they know the inventory better they know the wine list better than you do that's their job so really use them to make an educated decision all right so next up we kind of have our hybrid bottle here so old world meets New World in a sense when I look at it the front label here you see something that says AOG and so I'm not sure what that means after that it says zintana so I assume that that's the particular region that the wine is from I'd have to confirm that but from looking at the front label I can tell that the wine is actually from Morocco it is kind of surprising that you're like oh wow this is from Morocco but I'm sure they have a lush history of making wine there but this would be something that I would be intrigued in tasting right just for the edification of like just like little wines from that area taste like now we're going to talk about the name of the wine and the grape varietal the name of this wine is violet swell the grape varietal here is carry on this is from California this is what we would call a fantasy name now that I know what the grape varietal is which is carry on generally you think of crush violets and those kind of things it's very aromatic and floral I would guess that's the reason why they would use this particular name for this wine marketing sometimes kind of falls into this area where if you're a wine maker you're an artisan right you're pure in the idea that marketing is a bad word and that's not it a lot of times for wine makers it helps try to connect what they were feeling to the wine to the consumer so it could be marketing but I think for a lot of a lot of times it just kind of helped tells the story so here no fantasy name or anything like that there's not much to go on it just gives you the grape varietal it just says Merlot so that gives you an indication of kind of what it would taste like soft tannins those kind of things but other than that I don't really have anything else to go off of and a bear wearing a sweater I'm not real sure what that means right I mean he has fur why is he wearing a sweater I don't know judging from the front label it's labeled USA it just says Merlot already I'm thinking that this wine is under ten dollars under under 12 for sure so now this is example of old war wine here it's called the Abba what's interesting if you're kind of looking around for the grape varieto it's not listed prominently but it actually kind of is right dochetto is the name of the great and that's listed here on the front you wouldn't be able to use this name docetto the Abba if it wasn't sanctioned by the doc which is listed here the appellation so those two kind of go hand in hand if you look at the back of the label it just says red wine the governing body could say that it's only 100 joechetto legally different appellations set how much of the grape varietal needs to be on it before you can put it on the front this wine is called vacaras right so it's named after the region So based on the name you know you understand you have to know something about that particular region but generally you're looking at Syrah Grenache morvedra senso those are the popular grapes that are from in that particular area but it can be any combination of those all of this is intimidating like it's not your job like how how are you supposed to know are you like it seems like in order to appreciate wine like you have to study about it and that is kind of the tricky part in order to enjoy great wine you don't really need to know much about it or where it comes from and I don't think that you have to be an expert in wine to to to fulfill that that desire so the name of this one is sorako it does say Syrah on the front so here I'm trying to figure out what's exactly inside of the bottle so I'm thinking Syrah but then I think about Morocco and I don't know much about Morocco it's the northern coast of Africa so I do know the climate it is slightly warm where a grape like Syrah thrives from those two things I'm really intrigued to taste the one in general knowing the name of the wine it's good to know but it doesn't really give you any real insight knowing what the grape varietal is gets you closer to what's actually inside the bottle so next up we're going to talk vintages it's important that the wine have a vintage that it'd be vintage dated and that's an indication to let you know that all of these particular grapes were harvest in this particular year something that you're going to drink every day you know vintage doesn't really matter as far as longevity but vintage really plays more in a role overall if we're talking about you know more expensive wines trophy wines wines that you want to lay down I think as you start to get more and more into wine vintage will start to matter more to you but I think at the beginning you know you just want to make sure that it has a vintage on it because that is a sign of quality but vintage plays an important role but less of a role in my opinion when you're first getting into wine we have all the wines here we have vintages on all of them I think that's more important than me going through each particular one and saying how the Vintage affected the wine but they all have vintages which means it's a big plus all right so now we're going to actually talk about the artwork the label the design is it really important some people say yes some people say no but I think you know 90 of people buy wine just based on what the artwork looks like in the label so when I look at a label like this it doesn't really tell me much about the wine and I think that's kind of the purpose it's art for all intents and purposes right art is objective but to me what it says in general overall just seems like they don't take themselves serious I would probably be more likely to buy it because it seems light and fun if I had to rate mustaches I like mine better all right a little short sweet here there you go so all the labels have to be submitted to the government and what's interesting is that to the government the back label is actually the front label and so the front could really be anything you know long as there's you know it's not obscene or anything like that they generally pass it so here we have the ventigo it's kind of a cool label it's bright it's got some cool like minimalist Design Elements going on here and that sense of like how the cartoons are drawn I'm drawn to the wine because of the color even when you talk about marketing it's in a clear glass so you can kind of Marvel and look at a color there's no foil here either generally you'll see foil and a lot of the other labels I think sometimes that's a marketing decision I mean you save some money or that kind of thing but you actually get to you know take a look at the cook artwork here which is kind of cool and kind of Message in a Bottle all of those things kind of add up to different elements to it to me this is all about fun and having a great time all right we're back to two sock jumper it's kind of cool but it just kind of follows that whole thing that we talk about it put a critter on the bottle on it sells but generally speaking if you know know if it was a higher price point then maybe but other than that kind of a cool illustration but doesn't do anything else for me it's a bear does he drink wine I'm not for sure but I don't feel moved by this wine to want to buy it keeping at it this is Old World kind of the same thing how do you know you're there script lots of information there's generally some type of etching of the vineyard slash Chateau and it looks very Regal so also what's interesting too on a lot of these wines that are Regional they have what's a regional bottle so this is from bakaras this is the crest here and it's embossed on the particular bottle so thinking about overall artwork it doesn't really tell you anything about the wine maybe it helps you tell the story but it doesn't really do anything other than that however I know it's easiest for people to shop by label definitely when they feel like there's a connection but that's kind of like shopping in the Minefield all right so next up we're going to talk about two different categories here we're going to talk about producer name and we're also going to talk about the Importer and these are the people who actually select the wines have the relationship and they're like kind of the middleman they're are bringing the wines from in this instance from Spain into the United States they build a portfolio so they have intimate relationships with this particular producer and it's important right because you know sometimes you might look at a wine and you don't know anything about it maybe it's new you never heard of it before but if you start to take note of the Importer that signifies some type of quality and standards that you should be trustworthy with so if you hadn't had this wine before but you've had other wines that have tea Edwards if you look on the back it has this t on it then you should be able to take some comfort in that since this is a domestic wine there's no importer so there's nothing to look for on the back or anything like that this is made here in the United States and sold here so now we're these are old world examples Giacomo Pinocchio that's the name of the producer this is an Italian wine so it's imported here in the United States so if you're looking at the back here imported by skernick I talk to people all the time they're like wow you know like when I taste wines from like Italy or France or something like that it just tastes so much better and they're inexpensive and it's like yeah there's no inherent land costs you know that land has been in those people's families for over 100 years so they don't have to pay for the land anymore versus if you go to some place like Napa it's like a million dollars an acre right somebody's paying for that and that's the consumer another old world example domain lay sandakayu so blood of the stones kind of says it all and then if you look on the back one of the famous importers probably in the world the guy by the name of Kermit Lynch Kermit has such a following that I think there's some wine stores that their whole motto is they only buy his wines and they only sell his Wines in their store you know that's how much they believe and respect you know Kermit's palette and so generally speaking you know if you'd like those styles of wine you can't go wrong with shopping Kermit wines so next up we're going to talk about what we call the X Factor and these are just kind of extra things on the label that can lend more information and or be unuseful but just of interest and in any way so here we're looking at the bottle of wine in the back there's a lot of stickers here a lot of certifications so USDA organic wine is certified vegan so you know that this wine is not find with egg whites which traditionally a lot of wines are you have the Domino she's a sign of biodynamic you have to know about what each of these stickers means in the organization means but they can tell you a lot about what's in the bottle being organic biodontic and all those things were just kind of a way of life for a lot of wineries it wasn't used as a marketing term and I would have to say in the last 20 years and with a lot of these organizations coming up with their own stamps of approval now you're starting to find them on a bottle rightfully so because you know these are the things that matter to people all right so next up is the two sock jumper there's tons of crazy stuff on the back kind of overcrowded and weird in a way you know you have a thermometer here a temperature gauge maybe on how to serve it it's telling you what you compare things with and so you know it's barbecue salads and pizza just seems overcrowded and like a whole bunch of stuff and I'm confused and you know this kind of looks like someone threw up on the on the piece of paper save this part for your website right or something like that and kind of give you know more straightforward information but that was just my general thought when we talk about X Factor I've feel like we maybe skipped over something here and for me you know the alcohol is always an indicator so on the side I will say ABV and it'll give you a number and that can really kind of tell you you know the style of wine and the sense of like is it full body medium body light body those kind of things so here looking at it you know this says 12 percent and you perceive alcohol as weight on your palate so the higher alcohol wines tend to be richer and full body and mouth filling so next up we want to look at the back label here and for a lot of them you see the stock text there's the government warning that everybody's required to have and it must be at least two millimeters tall and then you see something that says contain sulfites and that's something that you need to add by the government and you know that's kind of a tug of war somewhat in in the wine world all wines contain sulfite so when someone says no-so fights it's a byproduct of fermentation there's sulfites in the wine kind of weird thing where everybody's like oh it has sulfites it gives me a headache and you know generally speaking there's probably more sulfites and one slice of bread than it is and a whole bottle of wine probably what you're allergic to is you know the histamines if you're allergic to something or you just had you know a whole bunch of wine with sugar in it that was and gave you a headache so the big question is can you actually judge a wine by its label I think that you can and now I'm going to show you how to do it two sock jumper based on everything I've seen on the front and back label this would probably be my last wine I would pick my least favorite I mean the biggest deal breaker with this wine is that it just says California appellation right I know nothing about the producer that's a big huge red flag for me it should be for you normally probably found at a grocery store which you can find great wine there but all of that together spells Doom and Gloom to me if I had to rate this label it's probably a d we'll see we'll taste it kind of rope me into talking a whole bunch you know I'm not naked I don't want to be see look at this the color looks alright smells like wine well I might have put my foot in my mouth smells good smells promising feels a little hot so kind of high in alcohol burn my throat as it goes down I say that would make the wine not balance this is pretty solid you know I mean it tastes like it's real it doesn't have a whole bunch of additives to it this is okay this is better than what I thought it would be after tasting it call it C minus solid so next up at number five we're going with the goat problem I think for me what makes this wine promising it's less about what's on the front label as I turn it over it's vegan I see the Importer T Edwards I see you know that it's organic you know so those lead me down this path to saying hey you know this is probably something I want to tell you so you know I want to see what's going on here if I had to rig it now like before tasting it you know I'd I would give this a c I don't really know what I'm gonna get and it seems like there was some thought going into it I'm anxious to try it still have a good screw cap so light color that's what Grenache is supposed to look like slightly just deceptive because it's got could have pretty big tannins smelling little strawberry raspberry this is solid this is definitely for me easy drinking hence maybe that's where the name comes from this is gulpable like you can definitely drink this wine low alcohol it's 12 and also I think you know probably you know it represents value I would actually give this wine a b pretty solid over delivers on value this is good coming in hot at number four is the ventigo just their overall packaging was intriguing just looking at the colors but being able to look at the wine and the clear glass kind of has the mo no packaging on the top it's kind of you know you're thinking you know this is more in the natural wine kind of segment of things if I had to put it in a category I think here just that it's in a clear bottle it just you know it looks appetizing to me it's like oh all right let me check this out let's see what's going on here it is Carry On which I'm interested to see this is a grape that you normally find in the south of France it's in Redwood Valley um you know high hopes for the swine out and say B some cherries it smells like a little little bit of mint it's good it's refreshing cherries wood spice this is definitely a natural wine it you know has that you know that terms like it smells Natty it tastes Natty but it's not off the deep end I feel like it it's a sound wine that's actually really tasty this is a really cool wine B plus this is what I expected all right in third place here we have the sorako from Morocco from talvin and along Grillo I was just intrigued by this wine just you know reading the back label about how this partnership happened I'm not real familiar with ones from Morocco so there's that Curiosity thing circling back around it's Saras I'm familiar with that I know what it's supposed to taste like but I've never had any from Morocco so this year I'd probably say B plus you guys ready to taste so it's got that dark Rich Syrah color smells like Syrah smells meaty Savory Rosemary it's great I didn't even know they can make Syrah like that in um in Morocco I know I'm sure you guys are like we know Morocco it's from Morocco now I don't know how many times have said it this is every bit of what I would want Syrah to be I give this an a all right next up we have dochetto just very classic label looking at the back is imported by skernick it's an important that I recognize and have some experience with and so that's why it comes in at number two I'm just thinking of classic docetto I mean it has that label tarte and lots of dark food is kind of what I'm expecting here if I had to grade this label on labels you know I give it an a right it's kind of a weird way to look at it but like if we were just judging the labels based upon traditionally what they look like that this seems like everything checks out here foreign Dusty a little bit of leather some cedar raspberries red berries it's classic docetto Rich slightly ripe pretty decent tannin is sucking the moisture out of my mouth it's great that's everything that it should be I give that an A so last but not least Numero Uno pick from vacaras this is a signed a Caillou so over classic style label from vacaras coupled with the Importer Kermit Lynch if I was looking at those things I would feel more comfortable saying this wine is probably going to taste exactly what I'm expecting what they're what they're advertising so to speak I have high hopes for this wine I love Kermit and the stuff that he brings in I would have had to rate this wine I'm thinking a right this is kind of the top of the list if I was shopping this would be the one that I would go to to me it kind of looks boring but you don't drink the label hence that's why we're doing this tasting oh yeah dark Ruby color smells old world smells like Throne a little tapenade with black olive a little bit of white pepper there's a Savory component there kind of almost smells kind of bloody and kind of a weird way but you know hence the name Leaps and Bounds better than any of the wines that we tasted today I mean just when you taste it what how it just sits on your palate it's just a different piece than everything else we taste it there's a little uh manure which which you know which I actually kind of kind of like it's slightly what we call mousy so it kind of you know has a little bit of botanomyces to it which is the technical term this is awesome this is like I want you guys all try you guys should try this maybe if we have enough glasses this is a plus you know all the way this is a plus this is yeah I might have to drink some tonight so today just by looking at the labels we're able to figure out what we were going to get inside the bottle the cool thing about wine is is that the more you drink the better you become at it and you accumulate knowledge just by drinking not even thinking that you're you're doing it right it's just kind of native But ultimately you know pass that information on to your wine shop and let them do their work like let them do their job because this is a slippery slope right here like you know the only way that you get better at this is to drink more right it's called practice keep drinking you know your relationship with wine is not about monogamy drink all of it any of it anywhere you can find it and that's the only way you're gonna get better wine people love to talk you can't get them to shut up about stuff tune them out every now and then but I'm gonna keep talking I'm talking I'm talking someone's staring at me over here because we're going over time we should probably taste nowI mean the biggest deal breaker with this wine is that it just says California appellation right I know nothing about the producer that's a big huge red flag for me it should be for you but all of that together spells Doom and Gloom to me just kind of rope me into talking a whole bunch you know I'm not naked I don't want to be see look at this so today we have six wines here in front of us and I'm gonna try to see if the labels hold up to the actual wine inside of the bottles and then we're gonna taste the wines to see how close I got so the goal of today is to teach you how to read the label so you know more about the wine that's actually inside the bottle you know the really confusing part about wine is that you actually have to know something about wine to actually kind of decipher and weed your way through this whole kind of crazy system so I've divided the wines into a couple of categories we have what we're calling the new world and then we have old world and then we kind of sort of have like this hybrid thing going on here new world labels tend to lead with grape varietals so it'll tell you which grape that you're actually consuming or what's actually in the bottle when we generally talk about New World Wines those are wines that are fruit forward they tend to grow from warmer places so think of South America America Australia those types of places and when we talk about old world we're talking about Europe traditionally they actually talk about the great from a place and then this kind of hybrid kind of has both it tells you the grape and it also is named after a place so we're going to take a look at some of the labels now but we're going to start with the Appalachian and region so first up we have the goat Pablo just red wine from Spain grenacha it looks bigger than most bottles but looking at the label it doesn't really tell me much just not giving in any way just has the name and some artwork the first thing is like where is it from but as far as region I know that we're in Spain it's a trend that I'm starting to see now where a lot of wines don't have much information on the front the key is that they want you to pick it up they want you to look at it so you're going to turn it around and find out more about It ultimately where the grapes are picked and harvested matter the most so next up this is the dinkigo this is called The Violet Swell this is from the Redwood Valley in California being more specific about where the grapes come from you get more control over what's happening with the grapes so this wine is from California but it's also from the Redwood Valley and so you know that at least 85 percent of the grapes are coming from that particular Valley next up is tuck stock jumper when I look at the region and it just says USA and then wine of California in the back it doesn't give me great hope that this wine would be of great quality which we talked about location location location if it had a Vineyard if it had a region I would think that it would be better quality it might do the job but you know I'm not real sure if it's something that I would pick up off the shelf and want to purchase but we don't know anything about it because the true taste is what's inside the bottle so next up is an old world wine I'm sure that you can tell just by looking at it this is a dochetta the Alba so the region is Alba it's docetto from Alba and the pimonte region of Italy so right there will automatically we know exactly where we're at here you see the name of the place underneath this is the doc which is the governing body that controls this particular growing region it's saying that this name needs to be protected and these are the rules of what you can be grown there how long they can be aged and the style of which the wine is made you see here there's a little doc ribbon here just to confirm and let everybody know that this is coming from malba so next up if you haven't guessed another example of an old war wine here this is and this is from the Rhone region of France in an appellation called balkarus in France the governing body is called Appalachian de control a so we shorten that to AOC so you'll see vacaras on the label here so the tricky part is is that it tells you the region but it doesn't tell you anything about the grapes so you have to know something about that particular region to understand what grapes are being used all of this information is readily available you know everybody has a smartphone in their pocket I feel like if you're in a store if they're not busy and someone can help you I'm sure that they would much rather you talk to them the idea is is that they're not an expert in your taste they're just a tour guide they know the inventory better they know the wine list better than you do that's their job so really use them to make an educated decision all right so next up we kind of have our hybrid bottle here so old world meets New World in a sense when I look at it the front label here you see something that says AOG and so I'm not sure what that means after that it says zintana so I assume that that's the particular region that the wine is from I'd have to confirm that but from looking at the front label I can tell that the wine is actually from Morocco it is kind of surprising that you're like oh wow this is from Morocco but I'm sure they have a lush history of making wine there but this would be something that I would be intrigued in tasting right just for the edification of like just like little wines from that area taste like now we're going to talk about the name of the wine and the grape varietal the name of this wine is violet swell the grape varietal here is carry on this is from California this is what we would call a fantasy name now that I know what the grape varietal is which is carry on generally you think of crush violets and those kind of things it's very aromatic and floral I would guess that's the reason why they would use this particular name for this wine marketing sometimes kind of falls into this area where if you're a wine maker you're an artisan right you're pure in the idea that marketing is a bad word and that's not it a lot of times for wine makers it helps try to connect what they were feeling to the wine to the consumer so it could be marketing but I think for a lot of a lot of times it just kind of helped tells the story so here no fantasy name or anything like that there's not much to go on it just gives you the grape varietal it just says Merlot so that gives you an indication of kind of what it would taste like soft tannins those kind of things but other than that I don't really have anything else to go off of and a bear wearing a sweater I'm not real sure what that means right I mean he has fur why is he wearing a sweater I don't know judging from the front label it's labeled USA it just says Merlot already I'm thinking that this wine is under ten dollars under under 12 for sure so now this is example of old war wine here it's called the Abba what's interesting if you're kind of looking around for the grape varieto it's not listed prominently but it actually kind of is right dochetto is the name of the great and that's listed here on the front you wouldn't be able to use this name docetto the Abba if it wasn't sanctioned by the doc which is listed here the appellation so those two kind of go hand in hand if you look at the back of the label it just says red wine the governing body could say that it's only 100 joechetto legally different appellations set how much of the grape varietal needs to be on it before you can put it on the front this wine is called vacaras right so it's named after the region So based on the name you know you understand you have to know something about that particular region but generally you're looking at Syrah Grenache morvedra senso those are the popular grapes that are from in that particular area but it can be any combination of those all of this is intimidating like it's not your job like how how are you supposed to know are you like it seems like in order to appreciate wine like you have to study about it and that is kind of the tricky part in order to enjoy great wine you don't really need to know much about it or where it comes from and I don't think that you have to be an expert in wine to to to fulfill that that desire so the name of this one is sorako it does say Syrah on the front so here I'm trying to figure out what's exactly inside of the bottle so I'm thinking Syrah but then I think about Morocco and I don't know much about Morocco it's the northern coast of Africa so I do know the climate it is slightly warm where a grape like Syrah thrives from those two things I'm really intrigued to taste the one in general knowing the name of the wine it's good to know but it doesn't really give you any real insight knowing what the grape varietal is gets you closer to what's actually inside the bottle so next up we're going to talk vintages it's important that the wine have a vintage that it'd be vintage dated and that's an indication to let you know that all of these particular grapes were harvest in this particular year something that you're going to drink every day you know vintage doesn't really matter as far as longevity but vintage really plays more in a role overall if we're talking about you know more expensive wines trophy wines wines that you want to lay down I think as you start to get more and more into wine vintage will start to matter more to you but I think at the beginning you know you just want to make sure that it has a vintage on it because that is a sign of quality but vintage plays an important role but less of a role in my opinion when you're first getting into wine we have all the wines here we have vintages on all of them I think that's more important than me going through each particular one and saying how the Vintage affected the wine but they all have vintages which means it's a big plus all right so now we're going to actually talk about the artwork the label the design is it really important some people say yes some people say no but I think you know 90 of people buy wine just based on what the artwork looks like in the label so when I look at a label like this it doesn't really tell me much about the wine and I think that's kind of the purpose it's art for all intents and purposes right art is objective but to me what it says in general overall just seems like they don't take themselves serious I would probably be more likely to buy it because it seems light and fun if I had to rate mustaches I like mine better all right a little short sweet here there you go so all the labels have to be submitted to the government and what's interesting is that to the government the back label is actually the front label and so the front could really be anything you know long as there's you know it's not obscene or anything like that they generally pass it so here we have the ventigo it's kind of a cool label it's bright it's got some cool like minimalist Design Elements going on here and that sense of like how the cartoons are drawn I'm drawn to the wine because of the color even when you talk about marketing it's in a clear glass so you can kind of Marvel and look at a color there's no foil here either generally you'll see foil and a lot of the other labels I think sometimes that's a marketing decision I mean you save some money or that kind of thing but you actually get to you know take a look at the cook artwork here which is kind of cool and kind of Message in a Bottle all of those things kind of add up to different elements to it to me this is all about fun and having a great time all right we're back to two sock jumper it's kind of cool but it just kind of follows that whole thing that we talk about it put a critter on the bottle on it sells but generally speaking if you know know if it was a higher price point then maybe but other than that kind of a cool illustration but doesn't do anything else for me it's a bear does he drink wine I'm not for sure but I don't feel moved by this wine to want to buy it keeping at it this is Old World kind of the same thing how do you know you're there script lots of information there's generally some type of etching of the vineyard slash Chateau and it looks very Regal so also what's interesting too on a lot of these wines that are Regional they have what's a regional bottle so this is from bakaras this is the crest here and it's embossed on the particular bottle so thinking about overall artwork it doesn't really tell you anything about the wine maybe it helps you tell the story but it doesn't really do anything other than that however I know it's easiest for people to shop by label definitely when they feel like there's a connection but that's kind of like shopping in the Minefield all right so next up we're going to talk about two different categories here we're going to talk about producer name and we're also going to talk about the Importer and these are the people who actually select the wines have the relationship and they're like kind of the middleman they're are bringing the wines from in this instance from Spain into the United States they build a portfolio so they have intimate relationships with this particular producer and it's important right because you know sometimes you might look at a wine and you don't know anything about it maybe it's new you never heard of it before but if you start to take note of the Importer that signifies some type of quality and standards that you should be trustworthy with so if you hadn't had this wine before but you've had other wines that have tea Edwards if you look on the back it has this t on it then you should be able to take some comfort in that since this is a domestic wine there's no importer so there's nothing to look for on the back or anything like that this is made here in the United States and sold here so now we're these are old world examples Giacomo Pinocchio that's the name of the producer this is an Italian wine so it's imported here in the United States so if you're looking at the back here imported by skernick I talk to people all the time they're like wow you know like when I taste wines from like Italy or France or something like that it just tastes so much better and they're inexpensive and it's like yeah there's no inherent land costs you know that land has been in those people's families for over 100 years so they don't have to pay for the land anymore versus if you go to some place like Napa it's like a million dollars an acre right somebody's paying for that and that's the consumer another old world example domain lay sandakayu so blood of the stones kind of says it all and then if you look on the back one of the famous importers probably in the world the guy by the name of Kermit Lynch Kermit has such a following that I think there's some wine stores that their whole motto is they only buy his wines and they only sell his Wines in their store you know that's how much they believe and respect you know Kermit's palette and so generally speaking you know if you'd like those styles of wine you can't go wrong with shopping Kermit wines so next up we're going to talk about what we call the X Factor and these are just kind of extra things on the label that can lend more information and or be unuseful but just of interest and in any way so here we're looking at the bottle of wine in the back there's a lot of stickers here a lot of certifications so USDA organic wine is certified vegan so you know that this wine is not find with egg whites which traditionally a lot of wines are you have the Domino she's a sign of biodynamic you have to know about what each of these stickers means in the organization means but they can tell you a lot about what's in the bottle being organic biodontic and all those things were just kind of a way of life for a lot of wineries it wasn't used as a marketing term and I would have to say in the last 20 years and with a lot of these organizations coming up with their own stamps of approval now you're starting to find them on a bottle rightfully so because you know these are the things that matter to people all right so next up is the two sock jumper there's tons of crazy stuff on the back kind of overcrowded and weird in a way you know you have a thermometer here a temperature gauge maybe on how to serve it it's telling you what you compare things with and so you know it's barbecue salads and pizza just seems overcrowded and like a whole bunch of stuff and I'm confused and you know this kind of looks like someone threw up on the on the piece of paper save this part for your website right or something like that and kind of give you know more straightforward information but that was just my general thought when we talk about X Factor I've feel like we maybe skipped over something here and for me you know the alcohol is always an indicator so on the side I will say ABV and it'll give you a number and that can really kind of tell you you know the style of wine and the sense of like is it full body medium body light body those kind of things so here looking at it you know this says 12 percent and you perceive alcohol as weight on your palate so the higher alcohol wines tend to be richer and full body and mouth filling so next up we want to look at the back label here and for a lot of them you see the stock text there's the government warning that everybody's required to have and it must be at least two millimeters tall and then you see something that says contain sulfites and that's something that you need to add by the government and you know that's kind of a tug of war somewhat in in the wine world all wines contain sulfite so when someone says no-so fights it's a byproduct of fermentation there's sulfites in the wine kind of weird thing where everybody's like oh it has sulfites it gives me a headache and you know generally speaking there's probably more sulfites and one slice of bread than it is and a whole bottle of wine probably what you're allergic to is you know the histamines if you're allergic to something or you just had you know a whole bunch of wine with sugar in it that was and gave you a headache so the big question is can you actually judge a wine by its label I think that you can and now I'm going to show you how to do it two sock jumper based on everything I've seen on the front and back label this would probably be my last wine I would pick my least favorite I mean the biggest deal breaker with this wine is that it just says California appellation right I know nothing about the producer that's a big huge red flag for me it should be for you normally probably found at a grocery store which you can find great wine there but all of that together spells Doom and Gloom to me if I had to rate this label it's probably a d we'll see we'll taste it kind of rope me into talking a whole bunch you know I'm not naked I don't want to be see look at this the color looks alright smells like wine well I might have put my foot in my mouth smells good smells promising feels a little hot so kind of high in alcohol burn my throat as it goes down I say that would make the wine not balance this is pretty solid you know I mean it tastes like it's real it doesn't have a whole bunch of additives to it this is okay this is better than what I thought it would be after tasting it call it C minus solid so next up at number five we're going with the goat problem I think for me what makes this wine promising it's less about what's on the front label as I turn it over it's vegan I see the Importer T Edwards I see you know that it's organic you know so those lead me down this path to saying hey you know this is probably something I want to tell you so you know I want to see what's going on here if I had to rig it now like before tasting it you know I'd I would give this a c I don't really know what I'm gonna get and it seems like there was some thought going into it I'm anxious to try it still have a good screw cap so light color that's what Grenache is supposed to look like slightly just deceptive because it's got could have pretty big tannins smelling little strawberry raspberry this is solid this is definitely for me easy drinking hence maybe that's where the name comes from this is gulpable like you can definitely drink this wine low alcohol it's 12 and also I think you know probably you know it represents value I would actually give this wine a b pretty solid over delivers on value this is good coming in hot at number four is the ventigo just their overall packaging was intriguing just looking at the colors but being able to look at the wine and the clear glass kind of has the mo no packaging on the top it's kind of you know you're thinking you know this is more in the natural wine kind of segment of things if I had to put it in a category I think here just that it's in a clear bottle it just you know it looks appetizing to me it's like oh all right let me check this out let's see what's going on here it is Carry On which I'm interested to see this is a grape that you normally find in the south of France it's in Redwood Valley um you know high hopes for the swine out and say B some cherries it smells like a little little bit of mint it's good it's refreshing cherries wood spice this is definitely a natural wine it you know has that you know that terms like it smells Natty it tastes Natty but it's not off the deep end I feel like it it's a sound wine that's actually really tasty this is a really cool wine B plus this is what I expected all right in third place here we have the sorako from Morocco from talvin and along Grillo I was just intrigued by this wine just you know reading the back label about how this partnership happened I'm not real familiar with ones from Morocco so there's that Curiosity thing circling back around it's Saras I'm familiar with that I know what it's supposed to taste like but I've never had any from Morocco so this year I'd probably say B plus you guys ready to taste so it's got that dark Rich Syrah color smells like Syrah smells meaty Savory Rosemary it's great I didn't even know they can make Syrah like that in um in Morocco I know I'm sure you guys are like we know Morocco it's from Morocco now I don't know how many times have said it this is every bit of what I would want Syrah to be I give this an a all right next up we have dochetto just very classic label looking at the back is imported by skernick it's an important that I recognize and have some experience with and so that's why it comes in at number two I'm just thinking of classic docetto I mean it has that label tarte and lots of dark food is kind of what I'm expecting here if I had to grade this label on labels you know I give it an a right it's kind of a weird way to look at it but like if we were just judging the labels based upon traditionally what they look like that this seems like everything checks out here foreign Dusty a little bit of leather some cedar raspberries red berries it's classic docetto Rich slightly ripe pretty decent tannin is sucking the moisture out of my mouth it's great that's everything that it should be I give that an A so last but not least Numero Uno pick from vacaras this is a signed a Caillou so over classic style label from vacaras coupled with the Importer Kermit Lynch if I was looking at those things I would feel more comfortable saying this wine is probably going to taste exactly what I'm expecting what they're what they're advertising so to speak I have high hopes for this wine I love Kermit and the stuff that he brings in I would have had to rate this wine I'm thinking a right this is kind of the top of the list if I was shopping this would be the one that I would go to to me it kind of looks boring but you don't drink the label hence that's why we're doing this tasting oh yeah dark Ruby color smells old world smells like Throne a little tapenade with black olive a little bit of white pepper there's a Savory component there kind of almost smells kind of bloody and kind of a weird way but you know hence the name Leaps and Bounds better than any of the wines that we tasted today I mean just when you taste it what how it just sits on your palate it's just a different piece than everything else we taste it there's a little uh manure which which you know which I actually kind of kind of like it's slightly what we call mousy so it kind of you know has a little bit of botanomyces to it which is the technical term this is awesome this is like I want you guys all try you guys should try this maybe if we have enough glasses this is a plus you know all the way this is a plus this is yeah I might have to drink some tonight so today just by looking at the labels we're able to figure out what we were going to get inside the bottle the cool thing about wine is is that the more you drink the better you become at it and you accumulate knowledge just by drinking not even thinking that you're you're doing it right it's just kind of native But ultimately you know pass that information on to your wine shop and let them do their work like let them do their job because this is a slippery slope right here like you know the only way that you get better at this is to drink more right it's called practice keep drinking you know your relationship with wine is not about monogamy drink all of it any of it anywhere you can find it and that's the only way you're gonna get better wine people love to talk you can't get them to shut up about stuff tune them out every now and then but I'm gonna keep talking I'm talking I'm talking someone's staring at me over here because we're going over time we should probably taste now\n"