The Art of Wine Tasting: A Journey Through the Russian River Valley and beyond

As I cracked open the bottle, I was immediately struck by its weighty presence on the table. The Russian River Pinot Noir from Fox Den Vineyard was a heavy bottle, with a label that looked like it had been attached or glued on. I wondered how much this wine would cost, knowing that such distinctive packaging often comes at a premium price. But as soon as I took my first sip, all doubts were forgotten. This wine was delicious, with flavors of dried cranberry and cherry, accompanied by a hint of tea-like black tea.

The winemaking process in the Russian River Valley is well-known for its ability to produce high-quality Pinot Noir. The region's microclimate, with its fog rolling in early mornings, creates an ideal environment for grapes to thrive. This wine was no exception, with a rich, complex flavor profile that showcased the best of the varietal. I was struck by how well-balanced and refined this wine was, with a subtle acidity that kept it feeling fresh and lively.

As I pondered the origins of Fox Den Vineyard, I realized just how little I knew about it. In fact, that's part of the beauty of wine - there's always something new to learn, some hidden gem or unexpected surprise waiting to be discovered. And what better way to experience this than through a glass of delicious Russian River Pinot Noir?

But our journey didn't end there. Up next was a wine from Maynard James Keenan, the enigmatic lead singer of Tool. The Caduceus Lake Courtijani Onesta 2017 was a hotly requested bottle, and for good reason. As I poured myself a glass, I couldn't help but notice the wine's brickish color, with hints of leather and smoke wafting up from the glass.

The first sip was like a revelation - this wine was old-world in style, with flavors that seemed to transport me to a different time and place. The Merlot and Barbera blend worked beautifully together, creating a rich, plummy flavor profile that was both familiar and unexpected. I was struck by the wine's balance and refinement, its acidity cutting through the richness of the fruit.

As I sipped this wine, I couldn't help but think about the origins of Maynard James Keenan's winemaking venture. It's a fascinating story - from his early days as a musician to his journey into the world of wine. And what better way to experience it than through a glass of delicious Arizona wine? The Caduceus Lake Courtijani Onesta 2017 was a ringer, blending seamlessly with other Barberas in blind tastings.

In the end, our tasting session came down to one clear winner: Eric Wareham's Yamin. But I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed every single bottle we tried - from the Russian River Pinot Noir to the Caduceus Lake Courtijani Onesta 2017. And that's what makes wine so special - there's always something new to discover, some hidden gem waiting to be found.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthe fact that this is 24 you can get this at 12 retail and get the same attributes that you get in this wine you're getting robbed hey I'm Samuel Andre Houston Mack and today I'm going to be tasting Wines By these celebrities I'm excited we have musicians we have actors and we have athletes and we're chasing them all today after our first episode of celebrity wines we got a lot of feedback and a lot of comments about the wines and the selections a lot of these wines today were requested by you so first up we have Gordon Ramsay you might know him from Hell's Kitchen kitchen nightmare all his various shows but this is a guy who's very serious in the kitchen I think he has the most Michelin stars in England we'll see what he knows about wine so here we have sauvignon blanc from Monterey County Gordon Ramsay 2019. a little lemon lime funny enough I get it like a little bit of Gooseberry something that I would normally find in New Zealand sauvignon blanc there's some acid to it I'd like it to be a little bit leaner I wanted to have more of an edge this is pretty decent sauvignon blanc for me I think this is well made from the regions that it that it's from Once you add the element of food to it it becomes a more delightful experience Monterey is an interesting wine grown region you know it reminds me a lot of Chateau enough to pop you know it's a dried out riverbed and has lots of like stones so it's really great for drainage so the water can creep down all the way down to the roots which makes for healthy great finds now the question leads me would Gordon Ramsay serve this wine in his restaurant I believe that he would this is a caliber of wine that can be served at any one of his restaurants here in this country Emoji emoji smiley face with sunglasses on this is like a cool wine maybe put a chef hat on top so next up we have Leonardo DiCaprio This is champagne Tillman and this is the reserve de la Terre you know when I look at this label it looks pretty modern for a champagne house generally it's got script lettering on it and then I think the biggest thing that kind of stands out is the closure normally what you would look at in Champaign you would have a metal cage and this has rope you always want to put your thumb on the top of the cork to make sure that it doesn't jump out or explode I'm going to use this Corkscrew to kind of get underneath here this is a little tricky hey Leo help me out here show us how to open this on the website or something here so you see I took my thumb off for one second and you see that it's starting to release here all right let's there we go all right this pressure is on and we made it awesome we got it open so that was an old closure method they used string before they use metal cages and that was very difficult to open when it Foams up that's called the mousse the bubbles are really tiny so you can see that they're still going so that's the sign of quality this is elegant this is champagne you know I get like a little bit of like butterscotch and honeysuckle you know I feel like it's it's lacking a little bit it's not a lot of acidity it just feels like it doesn't have The Zipper Zing that I would expect and at this price point ninety dollars I would be looking for something a little bit more expressive so the goal of this Winery is to produce organic fruit and also be 100 sustainable and I think that's a really big reason why Leonardo is a part of this particular project does it be in sustainable does that affect the price point yeah it does but there's also people who are making great wines at 28 bucks that kind of really set the standard for sustainability I think for me there's better examples of champagne at a lower cost than this particular one because I really want this wine I really want to like this one I was just expecting so much more from it and it just kind of fall flat for that reason I'm gonna give it the straight mouth Emoji all right so now we have Jon Bon Jovi and this is Hampton Water and this is a rose from the south of France from the londor dock so that's a region in the southern part of France lots of great wine comes from there so first impressions it's very clean bottle here I think my attention is drawn to the top so this is a glass closure if you're going to enjoy something a wine that's meant to be enjoyed young fresh these are probably a better way to go than cork it's definitely more sustainable in that way because you're not going to age this one and then this should just pop kind of right off here there we go voila and then you can put it right back in the bottle so if you don't drink it all you put it right back in a bottle and put it right back in the refrigerator smells like cotton candy to me a little bit of strawberry Citrus pill pretty good acid it's a little bit of minerality to it decent acidity you know if I was thinking about typically what you get from the longer dock strawberry flavors a little bit of citrus it does have like a slight floral note to it it definitely has like Rome varietal heavy the breakdown of grapes on the back of a wine is generally an American thing when you think about wines from Europe when you look at the bottle they're named after a place so it's a sense of place a sense of taste a sense of smell in America we name things after the great verado so you know what's in there and so it's just a different train of thought well this is twenty dollars I don't know if that's an affordable price point if it was more closer to like 17 I would feel like that it had more value to it but I'm not mad at this wine this is this is a good wine you know I'm gonna give this to okay Emoji like I think this is this is good wine it's okay if that's your jam and you should enjoy it so next up from Eric Wareheim from Tim and Eric and also from master of none is Los Jaris wines and this is actually called so the name is supposed to be reminiscent of the sound that you make when you're actually drinking the wine maybe more like guzzling the wine it's a French term and it goes like glug look so generally you don't see red wine in a clear bottle and that has to do with aging a wine you want to protect the wine from the sunlight and so the wine can actually age and have some type of longevity to it this wine is meant to be consumed right when you purchase it hence the name glug look it reminds me just off the nose slightly Dusty slightly leathery like like an old antique store pomegranate that's good what I'm most surprised about this particular wine the way that it's made doesn't outshine of the place that it comes from and when I say that I mean this definitely falls into that category of natural wine and that's not the first thing that I smell when I smell it in the glass it's not this this Natty bretty thing this is great due to like the Blends or the grapes or that they put in it but like this is just something fun that you don't really have to think about and it definitely stands up to its name as being chuggable in a way hence glue glue it'd be interesting to see how the suppositor grapes changed from the previous year 2021 was a big fire year in California there definitely was some Frost in 2020 people underestimate the role that mother nature plays in in making quality wine it's a big factor here especially for low intervention wines we're not doing a lot of stuff in the winery after the grapes come in so mother nature is really dictating what the wine is going to taste like whether you're a fan of Eric or not this is a cool wine I would drink this wine I'm probably gonna say this wine is probably about 25 bucks 29 28 28. at 28 I feel like this is good you're not getting ripped off and it's kind of the bomb for 28 bucks this is good I say this one is the bomb let's give it a bomb emoji so next up we have Kurt Russell this is the Goji Chardonnay 2018 and this is called Goldie after his partner Goldie Hawn yeah I mean besides the label I think the first thing that jumps out to me is the wax top you're starting to see it more and more this is just a more jazzier way to dress up the bottle it gets a little tricky when you open it here I think a lot of people try to cut it off like you do a foil it's pretty simple you just go straight through the top it's very easy here we go and it just pops right off and you see how it just breaks pretty clean looks like Chardonnay smells like Chardonnay but slightly different so generally when I think about California Chardonnay what I get you get buttery Oaky over the top popcorn butter those types of things this is not that at all in a really great way this reminds me a lot of like white burgundy so chardonnay from France an Old World style of Chardonnay lots of minerality smells like rocks just a little bit of honeysuckle the reason why we have those classifications New World in Old World is because of the weather patterns so if you take something like Chardonnay and plant it in California then it tends to be bigger have more alcohol more fruit and so kind of like over the top in Europe it's a little bit more subtle it's not as hot I don't know what the alcohol is but it's pretty big 14-3 so that's a big wine long long finish I still fill it into my mouth when we talk about finish it's just basically how long you can taste the wine after after you swallow it and after it's been in your mouth my mouth is on fire if I'm judging the wine off its quality of what it is it's a good one I think the wine is well made I think at 50 you get what you pay for if I had to give this wine an emoji I would give it the smiley face with the big stars in it right this is a Hollywood wine this is flashy and great and iconic so next up we have Kyle McLaughlin this is 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon called pursued by bear so many of you might know him from Twin Peaks the original Dune and for you young folks out there maybe you know him as the mayor from Portlandia but he also makes wine this is from Washington Columbia Valley the Bighorn region there a little bit more specifically within the Columbia Valley is a region called Walla Walla make terrific Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah this is Cabernet I'm really excited to taste this wine so pursued by bear is a stage direction from a Shakespeare play called a Winter's Tale uh crazy raspberry almost kind of sweet almost confectionary there's some cedar leather graphite that's pretty tasty big finish it's not overly Oaky slightly bit of vanilla but a little bit more cinnamon you know this one is really expressive I mean there's lots of nuance and layers to the wine the fruit elements the underbrush it's got a lot of alcohol but it's pretty well balanced in that way you can still get the essence of the fruit so in general if I'm talking about New World Wines and if we're talking about like say United States in general a lot of times the wines are too ripe too overdevelop in a cooler place like Walla Walla they're not overly ripe and over the top this is a great example of one of the great cabernets from Washington State seventy dollars here is a fair price this is serious one I like this one I think it's a strong showing I'm just going to go ahead and give it the strong arm Emoji there you go Kyle good job all right so next up it looks like Cameron Diaz this is called Abilene this is a white wine blend take a look on the back here it's actually from Spain but bottled here in California and it's a mix of grapes that you would generally find in the northern part of Spain auxiliaryo macabeo and malvasia so that combination seems right to me don't see a vintage date on it it's bright clear as a white wine starts to age it gets darker in color so not knowing the Vintage of when this comes from this wine looks light and doesn't look like it's been aged pears Apple kind of reminds me of applesauce when I was a little kid it's actually pretty tasty it's got some really great acid a little bit of grassy notes to it it's refreshing to be honest with you I feel like you could get this wine for half the cost this one is twenty four dollars so which only leads me to believe that you're paying for the name and the fact that it doesn't even come with a vintage it has me lost a little bit from this particular area in Spain you're going to typically get you know high acid Low Wood whites that kind of taste like the ocean with a little bit of melon and really fresh and crisp acidity and I feel like you get that in this particular wine but I just don't think that the value is there you're getting robbed you know what I mean like like there's nothing wrong with this wine at all it's actually really great and delicious and if you want to pay 24 by all means go ahead all I'm saying is that there's not enough value in that when I know that you can get the wine for half the price so the emoji for this one I'm going to give it the Imposter Emoji I feel like this one is faking the funk it's not authentic in that way that you can get a better for half the price all right so next up we have Graham Norton of The Graham Norton Show and this is his sauvignon blanc from New Zealand actually if you guys didn't know who Graham Norton was there's a picture of him on the back so you can see him there New Zealand sauvignon blanc this is a 2021. this smells like New Zealand sauvignon blanc gooseberries Citrus lots of grapefruit very herbaceous it reminds me a lot of canned green beans I get that a lot in New Zealand sauvignon blanc so it's not a bad thing the New Zealand's an island right so you definitely get the influence of the of the ocean so what we always talk about is those kind of hot days and cool nights and you get pretty high altitude which give the wine a little bit more lift and acidity this is New Zealand sauvignon blanc this is what they do straight up exactly what they do kind of going through my thought process of how I'm evaluating any of these is it classic is it well made is it indicative of the place that it comes from and I think it checks all of those boxes and then I start to look at price point 18.99 I mean you can get good examples of this on the shelf for 14. 18 is not a stretch this is like a feel-good wine right like you drink this wine like how could you not be happy it's just like great you know I'm thinking an island Emoji there's got to be an island emoji and not that this is a desert island wine it's just where I'd like to drink this wine hanging out with friends on an island so next up we have Kevin Love and Channing Frye this is chosen Family Winery this is 2019 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir I'm really excited because I love Pinot Noir and Willamette Valley Pinot Noir is really good I'm just gonna pull this off here I just couldn't wait I'm just gonna pull it off and we're just gonna go right in okay that's looking great it's got that P Funk it's like P Funk is like that Pinot Funk Barnyard mousy those are all good things good things I'm getting like tart cherries raspberries a little bit of allspice this wine is delicious the willanda valley is about 150 miles long about 50 miles wide and to me it's one of the greatest examples of Pinot Noir made in in the United States the Willamette Valley climate is very similar to a great region in France called burgundy it rains quite a bit Pinot Noir is a really thin skin grape very fickle and you kind of have to have perfect conditions to kind of get it right you want to have hot days so the grapes can ripen fanatically cool nights so the grapes can retain some type of acidity it's kind of The Best of Both Worlds it has that fruit that you associate with California means that choir tasted the land that you get from the old world I like this one I think this wine is great 35 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir that's expensive considering that the average bottle I think is like 15 or 10 but the quality is here I think this wine kind of over delivers at 35 for emoji hair I'm gonna do the money with wings I feel like this wine over delivers you get a little something extra than what you paid for and who doesn't like that all right so next up we have Ricky Rose Rick Ross this is Bel Air Rose a from France I don't believe that it is champagne but it is sparkling wine from France if this was champagne it would probably be more expensive and it would definitely say it on the bottle this is just a little marketing tag here it said experience real French rose that doesn't mean to me it is from France uh the whole idea of real I don't know what that means specific school I mean it's clear bottle so you can see the color of rose on it this is a typical cage that you have here so it's about six half turns you always want to keep your thumb on the top of the cork here and then we just want to kind of slowly twist and you don't want to make the big loud pop you just want to like just barely make it come out there we go so this is definitely easier than opening Leo champagne let's get the party started so this is mainly Syrah which is a thick skin grape that gives off a deep color even when you use it for Rose oh a little raspberry strawberry it's a little bit of grapefruit a little bit of white pepper to me it feels like the wine is super carbonated I'm not sure that it was made in the traditional method can't say that it's trash but like you know what I mean like you're overpaying for this particular wine I'm sure for some of it you're paying for Rick Ross and I would definitely use this wine if I was going to pair it with cheese like people get caught in this mindset oh you have to have red wine with cheese but a slightly sweet wine with cheese is complimentary but like on its own it's not pleasurable to me at all Emoji time I'm going to give it a teardrop I'm gonna have a sad face like just one tear I thought it was going to be better and that makes me sad all right so we have the 2018 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon from Yao Ming of basketball fame actually it was probably more of a blocker he's really tall that's what I remember let's see if it's good color looks amazing it's bright it's pretty clear just looks kind of resilient in a way straight off the bat what I get is Cassis raspberry a little bit of pencil shavings Plum vanilla pretty decent tannin structure starting to suck the moisture out of my mouth it's aged in Oak it's expressive through the vanilla that you get this is California Cabernet a good one so this is Yao family wines they range from 40 bucks to well over 500 what those price points tell me it's pretty serious the oak that they're using the techniques that they're using The Vineyards that they're purchasing fruit from so this is 98 that's quality I think you're getting what you pay for and I don't know too much about it if I just look at the label it just says it's from Napa Valley it doesn't give me any more detail I think at 98 I should kind of know it should come from a single Vineyard or you know maybe it's a blend of several different single Vineyards I don't know any of that information it's a great cabinet but I think at that price point I need to know a little bit more about it I would give this one the steak Emoji this wine is perfect for grilling big meat perfect so next up we have Aisha Curry's domain Curry and this is her Napa Valley sauvignon blanc 2021. all right so this is 100 sauvignon blanc this is from Napa Valley this is from the Calistoga region so up North I kind of don't really know what to expect very grassy smells just like when you open a bag of Skittles you open a bag of Skittles you smell them all so it's like a just burst of kind of fruit makes me smile definitely like tropical fruit and maybe a little mango the most prevalent thing is mangoes and apparently Aisha Curry used to be on the mango board obviously she likes mangoes it tastes pretty amazing really great acid it's like less minerality which you would find in say in a place like Bordeaux and probably a little bit more alcohol so it definitely has some weight and body to it but this is great sauvignon blanc from Napa this is good five dollars oh all right so this is 65 so it's really interesting because like at that price point 65 I feel like maybe it excludes a lot of people from wanting to be able to try the wine but even at 65 I think the wine is solid I still feel like this is worth it in that category so as far as Emoji goes I would have to give this the surprise Emoji I was just pleasantly surprised and maybe slightly caught off guard because I thought this was going to be inundated with Oak and it's not and it's actually pretty delicious all right so next up we have Jim Nance he's a sports broadcaster football basketball and golf this is called the calling this is a Russian River Pinot Noir and this comes from a single Vineyard called the fox den Vineyard this one's pretty interesting it's a pretty heavy bottle I think the label here is kind of the most distinctive it looks like it's a metal thing that's glued on here or attached I wonder how much this bottle costs it's got to be like it's a big part of the cost of the wine bottle is really heavy I don't know anything about Fox 10 Vineyard I do not and that's the great part about wine there's no possible way that you can know everything and that's kind of the cool part of like being in this business is that because you never stopped learning all right dried cranberry cherries a little bit of tea like black tea it smells like slightly spicy like nutmeg is what I'm getting that's Russian River Valley Pinot Noir that's pretty tasty so this wine weighs in at about 14 and a half percent and so that's big you know anything over 13 and a half percent is considered a big wine but the alcohol doesn't really show it isn't it's not disruptive in this wine it's pretty well ingrained in the wine it's not overly hot it seems like it's a classic example of where it's from and this wine is delicious and the Richmond River Valley is located in Sonoma and it's definitely got like this really kind of great micro climate for Pinot Noir so it's pretty cool space it has a little bit of fog that kind of rolls in in the early mornings they kind of keep it cool and Pinot Noir thrives there and this is pretty tasty I love Pinot Noir from all different parts of the world one of my favorite places to drink Pinot Noir is from the Russian River Valley and this wine is delicious and I'm gonna give it the Yum Emoji so next up our wine is from Maynard James Keenan the lead singer of Tool and this is called caduceus lake courtijani onesta 2017. so for all you guys that hit me up and left comments in the comment section this is for you this was a hottie requested one and I felt like if we were going to do it again we had to have this one yeah Maynard James is a pretty big Wine Guy there's a documentary about him about the wines that he makes all right we're going to open this up here well 2017 so definitely have some bottle maturity to it you can see the color looks a little brickish here smell a little leather it's a tad bit of smoke it's like dried plum cranberry really good acid I'm salivating right now I think that's due to the Barbaro so it's about 90 Barbara and 10 Merlot so Merlot is going to give it this kind of plummy ripe flavor to it and then Barbara lends a little bit of acid and also a little bit of fruit as well wow this one is pretty balanced and pretty tasty actually smells old world if I was tasting this wine in a blind tasting to me smelling the wine automatically it's not a lot of fruit that jumps out of the glass which to me is it's a peasant surprise especially coming from some place like Arizona what you think about is desert but there's definitely different micro regions that are better and different grapes that are suited to a warmer climate so the closer you are to the Equator the warmer it is which means that you get riper fruit riper fruit means more sugar sugars are translated into alcohol and alcohol is perceived as body weight on the palate so this one is fifty dollars and I'm not conflicted by that in any way this wine is really good and I think it's it's worth 50 bucks actually emojis emojis when you you kind of peel back the layers of the onion and understand this wine completely your mind is kind of blown by that it's from Arizona I think in the industry we would call this a ringer so we would put this wine in a blind tasting and so we would put it in with other barbaras and I think a lot of people would call this Barbera from Italy and so for that I would give it a mind-blowing emoji there were quite a few stand s actually more than I anticipated My overall favorite wine today was probably the Eric Wareham Yamin was great pursued by bear was great I mean there's so many ones they were just like fun to taste and interesting a really great overall showing of quality wine today whether or not a celebrity was involved or not ultimately I always preach that you're an expert in your own taste you should drink what you like not what Kurt Russell likes not what pursued by bear likes I go back because his name is sorry got it his name is not pursued by bearthe fact that this is 24 you can get this at 12 retail and get the same attributes that you get in this wine you're getting robbed hey I'm Samuel Andre Houston Mack and today I'm going to be tasting Wines By these celebrities I'm excited we have musicians we have actors and we have athletes and we're chasing them all today after our first episode of celebrity wines we got a lot of feedback and a lot of comments about the wines and the selections a lot of these wines today were requested by you so first up we have Gordon Ramsay you might know him from Hell's Kitchen kitchen nightmare all his various shows but this is a guy who's very serious in the kitchen I think he has the most Michelin stars in England we'll see what he knows about wine so here we have sauvignon blanc from Monterey County Gordon Ramsay 2019. a little lemon lime funny enough I get it like a little bit of Gooseberry something that I would normally find in New Zealand sauvignon blanc there's some acid to it I'd like it to be a little bit leaner I wanted to have more of an edge this is pretty decent sauvignon blanc for me I think this is well made from the regions that it that it's from Once you add the element of food to it it becomes a more delightful experience Monterey is an interesting wine grown region you know it reminds me a lot of Chateau enough to pop you know it's a dried out riverbed and has lots of like stones so it's really great for drainage so the water can creep down all the way down to the roots which makes for healthy great finds now the question leads me would Gordon Ramsay serve this wine in his restaurant I believe that he would this is a caliber of wine that can be served at any one of his restaurants here in this country Emoji emoji smiley face with sunglasses on this is like a cool wine maybe put a chef hat on top so next up we have Leonardo DiCaprio This is champagne Tillman and this is the reserve de la Terre you know when I look at this label it looks pretty modern for a champagne house generally it's got script lettering on it and then I think the biggest thing that kind of stands out is the closure normally what you would look at in Champaign you would have a metal cage and this has rope you always want to put your thumb on the top of the cork to make sure that it doesn't jump out or explode I'm going to use this Corkscrew to kind of get underneath here this is a little tricky hey Leo help me out here show us how to open this on the website or something here so you see I took my thumb off for one second and you see that it's starting to release here all right let's there we go all right this pressure is on and we made it awesome we got it open so that was an old closure method they used string before they use metal cages and that was very difficult to open when it Foams up that's called the mousse the bubbles are really tiny so you can see that they're still going so that's the sign of quality this is elegant this is champagne you know I get like a little bit of like butterscotch and honeysuckle you know I feel like it's it's lacking a little bit it's not a lot of acidity it just feels like it doesn't have The Zipper Zing that I would expect and at this price point ninety dollars I would be looking for something a little bit more expressive so the goal of this Winery is to produce organic fruit and also be 100 sustainable and I think that's a really big reason why Leonardo is a part of this particular project does it be in sustainable does that affect the price point yeah it does but there's also people who are making great wines at 28 bucks that kind of really set the standard for sustainability I think for me there's better examples of champagne at a lower cost than this particular one because I really want this wine I really want to like this one I was just expecting so much more from it and it just kind of fall flat for that reason I'm gonna give it the straight mouth Emoji all right so now we have Jon Bon Jovi and this is Hampton Water and this is a rose from the south of France from the londor dock so that's a region in the southern part of France lots of great wine comes from there so first impressions it's very clean bottle here I think my attention is drawn to the top so this is a glass closure if you're going to enjoy something a wine that's meant to be enjoyed young fresh these are probably a better way to go than cork it's definitely more sustainable in that way because you're not going to age this one and then this should just pop kind of right off here there we go voila and then you can put it right back in the bottle so if you don't drink it all you put it right back in a bottle and put it right back in the refrigerator smells like cotton candy to me a little bit of strawberry Citrus pill pretty good acid it's a little bit of minerality to it decent acidity you know if I was thinking about typically what you get from the longer dock strawberry flavors a little bit of citrus it does have like a slight floral note to it it definitely has like Rome varietal heavy the breakdown of grapes on the back of a wine is generally an American thing when you think about wines from Europe when you look at the bottle they're named after a place so it's a sense of place a sense of taste a sense of smell in America we name things after the great verado so you know what's in there and so it's just a different train of thought well this is twenty dollars I don't know if that's an affordable price point if it was more closer to like 17 I would feel like that it had more value to it but I'm not mad at this wine this is this is a good wine you know I'm gonna give this to okay Emoji like I think this is this is good wine it's okay if that's your jam and you should enjoy it so next up from Eric Wareheim from Tim and Eric and also from master of none is Los Jaris wines and this is actually called so the name is supposed to be reminiscent of the sound that you make when you're actually drinking the wine maybe more like guzzling the wine it's a French term and it goes like glug look so generally you don't see red wine in a clear bottle and that has to do with aging a wine you want to protect the wine from the sunlight and so the wine can actually age and have some type of longevity to it this wine is meant to be consumed right when you purchase it hence the name glug look it reminds me just off the nose slightly Dusty slightly leathery like like an old antique store pomegranate that's good what I'm most surprised about this particular wine the way that it's made doesn't outshine of the place that it comes from and when I say that I mean this definitely falls into that category of natural wine and that's not the first thing that I smell when I smell it in the glass it's not this this Natty bretty thing this is great due to like the Blends or the grapes or that they put in it but like this is just something fun that you don't really have to think about and it definitely stands up to its name as being chuggable in a way hence glue glue it'd be interesting to see how the suppositor grapes changed from the previous year 2021 was a big fire year in California there definitely was some Frost in 2020 people underestimate the role that mother nature plays in in making quality wine it's a big factor here especially for low intervention wines we're not doing a lot of stuff in the winery after the grapes come in so mother nature is really dictating what the wine is going to taste like whether you're a fan of Eric or not this is a cool wine I would drink this wine I'm probably gonna say this wine is probably about 25 bucks 29 28 28. at 28 I feel like this is good you're not getting ripped off and it's kind of the bomb for 28 bucks this is good I say this one is the bomb let's give it a bomb emoji so next up we have Kurt Russell this is the Goji Chardonnay 2018 and this is called Goldie after his partner Goldie Hawn yeah I mean besides the label I think the first thing that jumps out to me is the wax top you're starting to see it more and more this is just a more jazzier way to dress up the bottle it gets a little tricky when you open it here I think a lot of people try to cut it off like you do a foil it's pretty simple you just go straight through the top it's very easy here we go and it just pops right off and you see how it just breaks pretty clean looks like Chardonnay smells like Chardonnay but slightly different so generally when I think about California Chardonnay what I get you get buttery Oaky over the top popcorn butter those types of things this is not that at all in a really great way this reminds me a lot of like white burgundy so chardonnay from France an Old World style of Chardonnay lots of minerality smells like rocks just a little bit of honeysuckle the reason why we have those classifications New World in Old World is because of the weather patterns so if you take something like Chardonnay and plant it in California then it tends to be bigger have more alcohol more fruit and so kind of like over the top in Europe it's a little bit more subtle it's not as hot I don't know what the alcohol is but it's pretty big 14-3 so that's a big wine long long finish I still fill it into my mouth when we talk about finish it's just basically how long you can taste the wine after after you swallow it and after it's been in your mouth my mouth is on fire if I'm judging the wine off its quality of what it is it's a good one I think the wine is well made I think at 50 you get what you pay for if I had to give this wine an emoji I would give it the smiley face with the big stars in it right this is a Hollywood wine this is flashy and great and iconic so next up we have Kyle McLaughlin this is 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon called pursued by bear so many of you might know him from Twin Peaks the original Dune and for you young folks out there maybe you know him as the mayor from Portlandia but he also makes wine this is from Washington Columbia Valley the Bighorn region there a little bit more specifically within the Columbia Valley is a region called Walla Walla make terrific Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah this is Cabernet I'm really excited to taste this wine so pursued by bear is a stage direction from a Shakespeare play called a Winter's Tale uh crazy raspberry almost kind of sweet almost confectionary there's some cedar leather graphite that's pretty tasty big finish it's not overly Oaky slightly bit of vanilla but a little bit more cinnamon you know this one is really expressive I mean there's lots of nuance and layers to the wine the fruit elements the underbrush it's got a lot of alcohol but it's pretty well balanced in that way you can still get the essence of the fruit so in general if I'm talking about New World Wines and if we're talking about like say United States in general a lot of times the wines are too ripe too overdevelop in a cooler place like Walla Walla they're not overly ripe and over the top this is a great example of one of the great cabernets from Washington State seventy dollars here is a fair price this is serious one I like this one I think it's a strong showing I'm just going to go ahead and give it the strong arm Emoji there you go Kyle good job all right so next up it looks like Cameron Diaz this is called Abilene this is a white wine blend take a look on the back here it's actually from Spain but bottled here in California and it's a mix of grapes that you would generally find in the northern part of Spain auxiliaryo macabeo and malvasia so that combination seems right to me don't see a vintage date on it it's bright clear as a white wine starts to age it gets darker in color so not knowing the Vintage of when this comes from this wine looks light and doesn't look like it's been aged pears Apple kind of reminds me of applesauce when I was a little kid it's actually pretty tasty it's got some really great acid a little bit of grassy notes to it it's refreshing to be honest with you I feel like you could get this wine for half the cost this one is twenty four dollars so which only leads me to believe that you're paying for the name and the fact that it doesn't even come with a vintage it has me lost a little bit from this particular area in Spain you're going to typically get you know high acid Low Wood whites that kind of taste like the ocean with a little bit of melon and really fresh and crisp acidity and I feel like you get that in this particular wine but I just don't think that the value is there you're getting robbed you know what I mean like like there's nothing wrong with this wine at all it's actually really great and delicious and if you want to pay 24 by all means go ahead all I'm saying is that there's not enough value in that when I know that you can get the wine for half the price so the emoji for this one I'm going to give it the Imposter Emoji I feel like this one is faking the funk it's not authentic in that way that you can get a better for half the price all right so next up we have Graham Norton of The Graham Norton Show and this is his sauvignon blanc from New Zealand actually if you guys didn't know who Graham Norton was there's a picture of him on the back so you can see him there New Zealand sauvignon blanc this is a 2021. this smells like New Zealand sauvignon blanc gooseberries Citrus lots of grapefruit very herbaceous it reminds me a lot of canned green beans I get that a lot in New Zealand sauvignon blanc so it's not a bad thing the New Zealand's an island right so you definitely get the influence of the of the ocean so what we always talk about is those kind of hot days and cool nights and you get pretty high altitude which give the wine a little bit more lift and acidity this is New Zealand sauvignon blanc this is what they do straight up exactly what they do kind of going through my thought process of how I'm evaluating any of these is it classic is it well made is it indicative of the place that it comes from and I think it checks all of those boxes and then I start to look at price point 18.99 I mean you can get good examples of this on the shelf for 14. 18 is not a stretch this is like a feel-good wine right like you drink this wine like how could you not be happy it's just like great you know I'm thinking an island Emoji there's got to be an island emoji and not that this is a desert island wine it's just where I'd like to drink this wine hanging out with friends on an island so next up we have Kevin Love and Channing Frye this is chosen Family Winery this is 2019 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir I'm really excited because I love Pinot Noir and Willamette Valley Pinot Noir is really good I'm just gonna pull this off here I just couldn't wait I'm just gonna pull it off and we're just gonna go right in okay that's looking great it's got that P Funk it's like P Funk is like that Pinot Funk Barnyard mousy those are all good things good things I'm getting like tart cherries raspberries a little bit of allspice this wine is delicious the willanda valley is about 150 miles long about 50 miles wide and to me it's one of the greatest examples of Pinot Noir made in in the United States the Willamette Valley climate is very similar to a great region in France called burgundy it rains quite a bit Pinot Noir is a really thin skin grape very fickle and you kind of have to have perfect conditions to kind of get it right you want to have hot days so the grapes can ripen fanatically cool nights so the grapes can retain some type of acidity it's kind of The Best of Both Worlds it has that fruit that you associate with California means that choir tasted the land that you get from the old world I like this one I think this wine is great 35 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir that's expensive considering that the average bottle I think is like 15 or 10 but the quality is here I think this wine kind of over delivers at 35 for emoji hair I'm gonna do the money with wings I feel like this wine over delivers you get a little something extra than what you paid for and who doesn't like that all right so next up we have Ricky Rose Rick Ross this is Bel Air Rose a from France I don't believe that it is champagne but it is sparkling wine from France if this was champagne it would probably be more expensive and it would definitely say it on the bottle this is just a little marketing tag here it said experience real French rose that doesn't mean to me it is from France uh the whole idea of real I don't know what that means specific school I mean it's clear bottle so you can see the color of rose on it this is a typical cage that you have here so it's about six half turns you always want to keep your thumb on the top of the cork here and then we just want to kind of slowly twist and you don't want to make the big loud pop you just want to like just barely make it come out there we go so this is definitely easier than opening Leo champagne let's get the party started so this is mainly Syrah which is a thick skin grape that gives off a deep color even when you use it for Rose oh a little raspberry strawberry it's a little bit of grapefruit a little bit of white pepper to me it feels like the wine is super carbonated I'm not sure that it was made in the traditional method can't say that it's trash but like you know what I mean like you're overpaying for this particular wine I'm sure for some of it you're paying for Rick Ross and I would definitely use this wine if I was going to pair it with cheese like people get caught in this mindset oh you have to have red wine with cheese but a slightly sweet wine with cheese is complimentary but like on its own it's not pleasurable to me at all Emoji time I'm going to give it a teardrop I'm gonna have a sad face like just one tear I thought it was going to be better and that makes me sad all right so we have the 2018 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon from Yao Ming of basketball fame actually it was probably more of a blocker he's really tall that's what I remember let's see if it's good color looks amazing it's bright it's pretty clear just looks kind of resilient in a way straight off the bat what I get is Cassis raspberry a little bit of pencil shavings Plum vanilla pretty decent tannin structure starting to suck the moisture out of my mouth it's aged in Oak it's expressive through the vanilla that you get this is California Cabernet a good one so this is Yao family wines they range from 40 bucks to well over 500 what those price points tell me it's pretty serious the oak that they're using the techniques that they're using The Vineyards that they're purchasing fruit from so this is 98 that's quality I think you're getting what you pay for and I don't know too much about it if I just look at the label it just says it's from Napa Valley it doesn't give me any more detail I think at 98 I should kind of know it should come from a single Vineyard or you know maybe it's a blend of several different single Vineyards I don't know any of that information it's a great cabinet but I think at that price point I need to know a little bit more about it I would give this one the steak Emoji this wine is perfect for grilling big meat perfect so next up we have Aisha Curry's domain Curry and this is her Napa Valley sauvignon blanc 2021. all right so this is 100 sauvignon blanc this is from Napa Valley this is from the Calistoga region so up North I kind of don't really know what to expect very grassy smells just like when you open a bag of Skittles you open a bag of Skittles you smell them all so it's like a just burst of kind of fruit makes me smile definitely like tropical fruit and maybe a little mango the most prevalent thing is mangoes and apparently Aisha Curry used to be on the mango board obviously she likes mangoes it tastes pretty amazing really great acid it's like less minerality which you would find in say in a place like Bordeaux and probably a little bit more alcohol so it definitely has some weight and body to it but this is great sauvignon blanc from Napa this is good five dollars oh all right so this is 65 so it's really interesting because like at that price point 65 I feel like maybe it excludes a lot of people from wanting to be able to try the wine but even at 65 I think the wine is solid I still feel like this is worth it in that category so as far as Emoji goes I would have to give this the surprise Emoji I was just pleasantly surprised and maybe slightly caught off guard because I thought this was going to be inundated with Oak and it's not and it's actually pretty delicious all right so next up we have Jim Nance he's a sports broadcaster football basketball and golf this is called the calling this is a Russian River Pinot Noir and this comes from a single Vineyard called the fox den Vineyard this one's pretty interesting it's a pretty heavy bottle I think the label here is kind of the most distinctive it looks like it's a metal thing that's glued on here or attached I wonder how much this bottle costs it's got to be like it's a big part of the cost of the wine bottle is really heavy I don't know anything about Fox 10 Vineyard I do not and that's the great part about wine there's no possible way that you can know everything and that's kind of the cool part of like being in this business is that because you never stopped learning all right dried cranberry cherries a little bit of tea like black tea it smells like slightly spicy like nutmeg is what I'm getting that's Russian River Valley Pinot Noir that's pretty tasty so this wine weighs in at about 14 and a half percent and so that's big you know anything over 13 and a half percent is considered a big wine but the alcohol doesn't really show it isn't it's not disruptive in this wine it's pretty well ingrained in the wine it's not overly hot it seems like it's a classic example of where it's from and this wine is delicious and the Richmond River Valley is located in Sonoma and it's definitely got like this really kind of great micro climate for Pinot Noir so it's pretty cool space it has a little bit of fog that kind of rolls in in the early mornings they kind of keep it cool and Pinot Noir thrives there and this is pretty tasty I love Pinot Noir from all different parts of the world one of my favorite places to drink Pinot Noir is from the Russian River Valley and this wine is delicious and I'm gonna give it the Yum Emoji so next up our wine is from Maynard James Keenan the lead singer of Tool and this is called caduceus lake courtijani onesta 2017. so for all you guys that hit me up and left comments in the comment section this is for you this was a hottie requested one and I felt like if we were going to do it again we had to have this one yeah Maynard James is a pretty big Wine Guy there's a documentary about him about the wines that he makes all right we're going to open this up here well 2017 so definitely have some bottle maturity to it you can see the color looks a little brickish here smell a little leather it's a tad bit of smoke it's like dried plum cranberry really good acid I'm salivating right now I think that's due to the Barbaro so it's about 90 Barbara and 10 Merlot so Merlot is going to give it this kind of plummy ripe flavor to it and then Barbara lends a little bit of acid and also a little bit of fruit as well wow this one is pretty balanced and pretty tasty actually smells old world if I was tasting this wine in a blind tasting to me smelling the wine automatically it's not a lot of fruit that jumps out of the glass which to me is it's a peasant surprise especially coming from some place like Arizona what you think about is desert but there's definitely different micro regions that are better and different grapes that are suited to a warmer climate so the closer you are to the Equator the warmer it is which means that you get riper fruit riper fruit means more sugar sugars are translated into alcohol and alcohol is perceived as body weight on the palate so this one is fifty dollars and I'm not conflicted by that in any way this wine is really good and I think it's it's worth 50 bucks actually emojis emojis when you you kind of peel back the layers of the onion and understand this wine completely your mind is kind of blown by that it's from Arizona I think in the industry we would call this a ringer so we would put this wine in a blind tasting and so we would put it in with other barbaras and I think a lot of people would call this Barbera from Italy and so for that I would give it a mind-blowing emoji there were quite a few stand s actually more than I anticipated My overall favorite wine today was probably the Eric Wareham Yamin was great pursued by bear was great I mean there's so many ones they were just like fun to taste and interesting a really great overall showing of quality wine today whether or not a celebrity was involved or not ultimately I always preach that you're an expert in your own taste you should drink what you like not what Kurt Russell likes not what pursued by bear likes I go back because his name is sorry got it his name is not pursued by bear\n"