Mass-produced wines compete for consumers

The Vinography wine blog, never at a loss for an opinion, recently carried news of a 2005 survey done by Restaurant Wine Magazine, a newsletter for those in the business of buying and selling wines for restaurants.

The best-selling wine in American restaurants in 2005, they report – no surprise here – was Kendall-Jackson Vintner’s Reserve Chardonnay. But what follows on the Top 10 list is, depending upon your point of view, either illuminating, disheartening or simply, as the French might put it, “incroyable!”

Three of the next six best-selling restaurant wines are white zinfandels – Beringer, Sutter Home and Franzia. One is simple plonk, Inglenook “Chablis,” another slightly-less-simple plonk, Woodbridge Chardonnay. The list includes a pair of bottom-of-the-barrel pinot grigios, Cavit and Ecco Domani, and wraps up with the Yellowtail twins, chardonnay and shiraz.

Of course, these sales figures are heavily skewed by chain restaurants, which necessarily must purchase only those brands available in vast quantities, and hence tend to offer patrons the most industrial, least interesting stuff in the market. (Granted, the Kendal-Jackson rises well above that dismal standard. Maybe that’s why it is consistently number one.)

If nothing else, Restaurant Wine Magazine’s list proves that the competition for the average consumer’s wine dollar stands on some unremarkable shoulders. Given this, the explosion of corporately-conceived “fun” labels, featuring a wide variety of animals, vehicles and other icons of the life well lived, may actually represent something more than mere cynical avarice. It may in fact be a step up.

Here are four widely available representatives of this new category of wines. I call it “Made-up Wines with a Cute Story.”

Papio is a line of wines featuring a party-loving monkey. Papio, we are told, is Latin for baboon, and he is shown on the label playing a trumpet (“a testament to their passion for things that swing” blathers the press release). Papio has another pretty good gimmick: A portion of its profits are donated to zoos around the country.

Commandeering his own competing stable of wines is a 47-pound rooster named Rex Goliath. The label and back story are based on a fable about a rooster that supposedly traveled with a Texas circus a century ago. Rex, according to those who knew him well, was quite a party dog. The thing about roosters, notes Rex Goliath winemaker Mike Kafka, is “they are cocky and a bit arrogant, but they have a fun-loving attitude and enjoy each day as if they ruled the world.”

No wine review would be complete without some transportation wines, so let me introduce you to Cline’s Red Truck and White Truck wines. Granted, a truck can’t play a trumpet, write a blog or rule the world, but it can look darn cute. These trucks are supposed to “evoke the warmth and adventure of carefree times cruising down the road on a breezy sunny day with the windows rolled down and radio blasting.”

Saving the best for last, I give you Cycles Gladiator, whose icon is a naked woman riding a bicycle. She’s not exactly riding the bicycle; upon closer inspection she appears to be hanging onto it for dear life, hair flying in the breeze. The brand name comes from an original Belle Époque poster painted in 1895 to promote an actual Cycles Gladiator bicycle company. More importantly to us wine drinkers, it “symbolizes a celebration of the freedom and happiness that pervaded Europe in the late 19th century.”

Apart from their dedication to swinging good times, these four brands have managed to source some well-ripened California fruit. They have even come up with thoughtful, creative blends for many of their wines and offer them at very affordable prices.

Here are the highlights in four competing categories:

Pinot Grigio

Pinot gris/pinot grigio – it’s the same grape, just different names. Cleverly, these new wineries add some fragrant nongrigio grapes to the blend. Papio goes with malvasia and viognier and comes up with a very fresh, fragrant quaffer at a great $6 price. In this flight, all four brands delivered solidly-made bottles. If I had to pick a winner, it would be the Cycles Gladiator ($11), which used riesling in the blend and delivered a nervy, bracing, stony and substantial wine, bone dry and ready for food.

Chardonnay

The most dreaded flight (bring on the oak chips and sugar!) turned out to be pretty OK. Papio again scored well, this time by adding muscat and sauvignon blanc to the blend and sticking with all stainless fermentation. The truck and the rooster were so-so, but the Gladiator, despite the unmistakable scent of buttered popcorn, again delivered a well-balanced, flavorful, 100-percent varietal wine, with crunchy green apple fruit offsetting the oak.

Merlot

I rarely have good things to say about cheap California merlot, but here again I was pleasantly surprised. The monkey turns out to be a blend master, mixing sangiovese, barbera, petite sirah and true syrah in with the merlot. The rooster went with malbec — a left hook out of nowhere — which stiffened up the tannins and added some smoky coffee notes. The truck stalled, but the Gladiator’s Bordeaux blend (merlot, cabernet and petit verdot) came on like a minimeritage with surprising complexity.

Cabernet Sauvignon

Into the final turn the truck pulled away, with a stellar, 100-percent cabernet that tasted of sweet black cherries and baking chocolate. A sturdy, straight-ahead, palate pleaser ($13). The other three, different in style, I would rate in a dead heat, not far behind and stylistically similar to their various merlots.

These wines are line-priced: $7 for the Papio, $7 for the Rex Goliath, $10 for the Red/White Truck and $10 for the Cycles Gladiator.