Is this CHEAP WINE worth the $? | French Winemaker Tastes Woodbridge By Robert Mondavi

Transcript:

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:25:11
Today, I’m tasting wines from one of the most popular brands in America. Yes. Created by an American wine icon. Everyday wines that you can buy for very cheap. And they’ve been saying that this is good wine for 40 years. Apparently people have been buying this stuff crafted for over 30 years and perfect for every day. Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi.

00:00:25:13 – 00:00:54:04
My goal today to find out whether the wines called Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi are any good or not at all, and maybe disgusting. Disgusting. Are they even worth the $5 price tag? Or is that good value? Or is it not even worth that kind of money to go further than other wine channels do and give you? As far as tasting impressions go for each of these wines, I’m going to give you my expectations to set a bit of a bar.

00:00:54:06 – 00:01:25:03
We have a Cabernet Sauvignon, the red wine. We have Chardonnay, the white wine, and the rosy called white Zinfandel. I’m going to tell you for each of these is what I like about those wines, and also the dark side, what I don’t love about them and more importantly, what they’re missing that more expensive wines should have instead. Let’s get into it.

00:01:25:05 – 00:01:59:00
Hello and welcome to your new Bonner Private Wines video. I’m your host, Julien Miquel, Bordeaux trained winemaker, French winemaker. Yes. I’ve spent the past 25 years or so making first and tasting, more importantly, fine wine from around the world. As I worked in many wine countries; in Bordeaux, where I was trained in France, and Spain and Italy, Australia, California and even New Zealand, I’ve tasted my fair share of some of the finest wines on Earth, but I also think that wine is for everybody.

00:01:59:00 – 00:02:24:04
We should all be able to enjoy a good glass of wine that suits our palate and our budget. That’s why I don’t mind cheap wines in principle, although there are some that I definitely wouldn’t drink personally. So let’s find out if the range of wines called Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi is actually decent or not. I have the staple flavors.

00:02:24:04 – 00:02:46:14
If I can tell them that, the chardonnay, a white Zinfandel, rosé, or even the Cabernet Sauvignon, oh, I’m going to take this corkscrew. Let’s start with the chardonnay, shall we? By the way, you’re watching the Bonner Private Wine Partnership, the best wine club in America. We have an amazing wine selection. You should check them out through the link in the description.

00:02:46:14 – 00:03:11:16
Let’s get tasting why you should be drinking and enjoying, not stressing over. That’s why there’s Woodbridge. It’s all you need to know about great wine. So what would I expect from a decent at least chardonnay? A cheap chardonnay? Well, chardonnay should be quite fruity, quite approachable, so it should have some decent amount of flavor. So quite flavorsome.

00:03:11:16 – 00:03:32:11
I would say it’s not an aromatic white, but it should have some good flavors of fruit. From California I would expect some tropical fruit. What I would like also in a decent chardonnay is some freshness, decent acidity. I’m not sure if some parts of California are really hot, so maybe it could be a bit flabby. Let’s find out.

00:03:32:15 – 00:03:54:05
And finally, an overall balance between the freshness. Not too sweet. I would like some minerality ideally. Let’s see what it’s got of all of this. And I haven’t even gotten through the cork yet. I’m talking a little bit too much. Hurry up. Julien, we don’t have 20 minutes to get through this video. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.

00:03:54:05 – 00:04:21:10
Here it is. And pouring this chardonnay then. it’s a decent color. A bright lemon yellow. It’s quite intense a color for a cheap wine. You can definitely tell that it’s got, seems to have, some concentration in there just by looking at it. Let’s smell. Oh, yes. There’s definitely quite a lot of flavors. Yes, it’s quite ripe and tropical as I was expecting, definitely a lot of melon.

00:04:21:10 – 00:04:43:12
So on the right side of chardonnay. Yes, maybe a little bit of lemon. Not so much though. More like brioche, which we do expect the butter from chardonnay. We know that in California they love to infuse a lot of a lot of butter in the chardonnay. Like this. Really sweet. Pineapple as well. A bit of mango, a bit of lychee.

00:04:43:12 – 00:05:11:15
So all the spectrum of aromas that we expect from a ripe chardonnay. Let’s taste this. Ooh, ooh. And, yeah, the palate is actually very, very decent. Yes, we do have a solid acidity. This is pretty much bone dry. Maybe a little bit of sugar in the background, but the body is really oily and the acidity definitely shines through.

00:05:11:17 – 00:05:35:09
You get a huge burst of flavors. So definitely a flavorsome shout of name. We’ve got here all the tropical spectrum, the flavors that we talked about, and the finish is quite lingering with a bit of lime and lemon, so we do have a bit of minerality towards the finish as well. In all of this is surrounded by a lot of butter and brioche, but it’s not over the top.

00:05:35:09 – 00:06:00:18
It’s not just a caricature of a chardonnay, decent freshness, some light, all the tropical fruits that you want. And the balance overall is also pretty good. So, I mean, honestly, this is actually a very, very decent chardonnay, but now to what I don’t like about it. Well, yes, you get a big burst of powerful flavors to start with.

00:06:00:18 – 00:06:22:14
And if you stop there, that’s good enough. But there’s not a ton happening. It’s not very, very long at all. There’s really not a ton of minerality. The body, if you analyze it and spend a bit more time, if you get back to trying your wine again, well, it’s actually a bit flabbier than what I was telling before.

00:06:22:16 – 00:06:57:21
So you get a big burst of flavors, but then it kind of stops and disappears as soon as you’ve swallowed the wine. So it’s very, very short. It’s just instant gratification. But with one glass of wine where you very pretty much understood the whole thing in this pretty much no, nothing to get back to that is going to be really interesting unless you just want to drink and sip and quench a lot of chardonnay as far as aging potential, because it doesn’t really have all that body in the minerality, it’s not going to go that far either.

00:06:58:00 – 00:07:20:16
But overall, yes, this is a pretty decent chardonnay if you only have a few bucks available, bucks available to buy a bottle of white wine. But let’s move on to a rosé. Why they call it a white Zinfandel. I’m not all that familiar with this style, because we don’t really get this in France. I’ve come across it in California.

00:07:20:16 – 00:07:54:20
I wasn’t all that keen on the style. What would I expect? What I like from a good rosé is to have some freshness, purity of flavor. I would love a bit of floral characters, not just the berry fruits. Not too sweet please. Not too jammy, not too discussing—disgusting. A bit of an overall balance. I’m not sure I’m going to get all of this from a white zinfandel, but you never know given how the chardonnay was all white.

00:07:54:22 – 00:08:25:02
Let’s find out if the white Zinfandel is good. I do believe white Zinfandel is kind of a bit of an old style of wine. Maybe not that in fashion anymore. Let’s find out. The color is decent. It’s more on the paler style of rosé, so it’s not like super bright pink, which is, to me, a good indication that maybe it’s not going to be too sweet, because generally, pale rosés, just like in Provence, tend to be a little on the drier side.

00:08:25:05 – 00:08:50:19
Let’s smell it. So yes, pink salmon, but not that intense. So quite light, the color. It’s decent. It’s just what you expect from a rosé. Yeah, it smells very fruity at first. A lot of strawberry, it’s quite a lot of esters, as we say, sort of like banana, pear, sort of aromas from fermentation more than from the fruit itself, which we kind of expect.

00:08:50:19 – 00:09:17:04
This is where it’s probably fermented at low temperature. So you get a lot of banana and pear sort of aromas, not a ton from the fruit characters themselves. Some strawberry. So it’s very on the fruity side, essentially all fruit, all fruit, just a lot of aromas of fruit in there. Let’s taste.

00:09:17:06 – 00:09:47:01
Yes. Oh, yeah. And this. Yes. This is not quite my favorite style of rosé and somewhat I was expecting that, but I was hoping somewhat. Somehow the white Zinfandel style had evolved over time. It’s been going on for decades and now it’s very, very sweet. I mean, it’s not hugely sweet, but it’s quite sweet. So if you don’t like something sweet with your food, and I’m French and I don’t generally drink sweet stuff with my food, this is pretty sweet.

00:09:47:01 – 00:10:10:05
That said, the freshness is quite strong as well. I would assume they would have added maybe a bit of acid in there because there’s some really good acidity in there. So the overall freshness is okay. Big, big burst of fruits. The strawberry reminds me of like a cherry juice as well. With again with these banana, this pear, a bit of citrus.

00:10:10:05 – 00:10:33:19
So it’s a fruit bomb with quite a lot of sugar, quite a lot of sweetness, but a decent acidity. The overall balance is fine. What I don’t love about this. Well, again, it falls extremely, extremely short. It’s extremely sweet. So I don’t really see except for having it on its own for me, no food whatsoever. Or maybe some chips and peanuts.

00:10:33:19 – 00:10:57:01
And maybe that’s about it. Otherwise it’s going to ruin any fine food that you are going to put with it. Maybe a salad. Otherwise, if it’s any complex dish where you’re going to just have a lot of sugar in your mouth. And that’s not how I enjoy wine with food. So not a lot of finesse whatsoever. The floral characters that I was hoping for, well, they’re not here.

00:10:57:01 – 00:11:26:03
They’re they’re just too far away behind the banana and the strawberries. But let’s move on to the one I’m looking forward to the most: cabernet sauvignon. Cabernet sauvignon is one of my favorite grape varieties, if not my favorite grape variety in the entire world. I do generally tend to love and enjoy the more high end type of cabernet sauvignon, and not the cheap one from California, but I do love a good cabernet sauvignon.

00:11:26:04 – 00:11:52:10
My expectations for a good cabernet sauvignon: I would like to it to have some fruit, but not only fruit. I really the signature of cabernet sauvignon. So a bit of blackcurrant or cassis as we call it, that would be really nice and not too flabby. A bit of berry fruits mix, but also a bit of leather, maybe some earthy notes as well to make it a bit more interesting.

00:11:52:10 – 00:12:18:16
So decent flavors that I would like it still to have a bit of freshness and overall balance. So good acidity that lifts up the freshness from the berries, not just flabby and oily and sweet. I’ve tasted cabernets that are like this so have an overall freshness, a good acidity to lift things up and an overall good balance. And we’ll see about the quality of tannins.

00:12:18:16 – 00:12:44:19
Cabernet sauvignon is all about really fine grained tannins, solid body, tannic structure that is interesting in that normally allows it to age really well. The color is decent. Yeah. It’s not very dark for cabernet sauvignon. Of course, many are going to be a little darker than this, but it’s not that light either. It looks a little bit orange to me.

00:12:44:19 – 00:13:04:17
So this you’d expect it to be a young wine, so I’m not sure why it’s already a bit orange, but it’s not a ton of color there, so I suspect it ages for quite a while. This is probably a huge, massive blend as well from grapes that are not that concentrated to start with. So nothing bad about the color.

00:13:04:17 – 00:13:31:06
It’s a decent color, but it doesn’t look that spectacular as of course we expect. Let’s sniff. Ooh, yeah, definitely getting a lot of tobacco. To start with tobacco leaves. It’s a little bit smoky. It’s a bit like hay, actually, which is quite a good thing, because it’s not just fruit. It’s not just jelly with berry jelly and fruit.

00:13:31:08 – 00:13:55:02
I’m not really getting the blackcurrant or the cassis. I’m not getting the freshness of the red berries either. It’s seems to me more like cooked food. It’s a bit caramelly. Maybe some cooked apples like an apple crumble sort of thing. This is a bit of a prunes in there as well as some raisin, so it’s definitely more on the cooked in overripe type of fruits rather than the freshness of the berries.

00:13:55:02 – 00:14:02:06
Let’s find out. On the palate.

00:14:02:08 – 00:14:25:08
Yeah, it’s actually quite okay. Let me give you the things that I like about them—about it, and what I don’t like. And yes, I know, and I love cabernet sauvignon so much that I would have quite big expectations for this wine. But let’s start with the things that I like. It has the signature of cabernet sauvignon does get through on the palate.

00:14:25:08 – 00:14:45:00
You get a bit of this. It’s kind of really mellowed with all the cooked apple in all the caramel and all the raisin stuff, but it’s way fresher on the palate than I was expecting from the nose. You do get some sense of a bit of freshness in there, a decent amount of power, of flavor intensity. Yes.

00:14:45:00 – 00:15:06:13
You get all this explosion of caramel and sweet spices and the prunes and raisins and the cooked apple in its own pretty pungent and powerful. Towards the finish, you get a bit of an oak. You know, the tobacco leaves that I was saying. It’s it is a bit earthy, maybe a touch of forest floor and the mushrooms always.

00:15:06:13 – 00:15:31:13
There is a sense of complexity in there, you know, it’s not just fruit in disgusting sweetness. The overall balance is okay. It doesn’t feel sweet. Some okay acidity lacks a bit of freshness for me, for the overall balance. It’s a little bit flabby towards the finish in the tannin somewhere. There’s not a ton happening there, but you can feel the tannins and that’s going to be okay with some foods.

00:15:31:15 – 00:15:53:22
What I don’t love about it: the flavor profile itself is not overly satisfying. This is all a bit about this cooked food that’s really going to get annoying very, very quickly after the first glass. You don’t really want to have more of this caramel cooked apple sort of juice, thing goes away super short again, so there’s not much happening there.

00:15:53:22 – 00:16:13:04
And again, the tannins and the overall balance. A good wine is going to stay really strong, really dense on your palate. This is more like we say, flabby. So it kind of falls at the bottom of your mouth very, very quickly because of the lack of acidity and tannins to just hold the texture and the structure of the wine.

00:16:13:04 – 00:16:37:14
This gets really flabby very quickly on your palate. Not a ton of structure. So this is not going to age very well. That fruit is going to get really disgusting, disgusting very quickly. But overall it’s got some spices. It’s got a quite a diversity of flavors. So it is a decent wine for me. But what do I make about all of these Woodbridge wines?

00:16:37:14 – 00:17:19:20
Well, apart from the rosé that I would personally not buy for myself—if I knew I had a crowd of people that enjoy sweet rosé for something super simple for aperitifs, why not? Apart from that, I would definitely never touch a white Zinfandel. But then the chardonnay and the cabernet sauvignon are to me very decent wines because it seems to me the winemakers have infused enough quality is enough balance, enough complexity is not enough power in the flavors for those wines to be what they sold as they shot on a decent chardonnay and a decent cabernet sauvignon.

00:17:19:20 – 00:17:43:14
So yes, Woodbridge, I’m definitely not against them. Some wines that are cheap, I buy them and I’m like, oh, this is so disgusting. I’m never touching that bottle again. As I said, I could go through a glass of this wine or two if I was really thirsty that night, I could have a glass of the chardonnay and a glass of the cabernet sauvignon and find those glasses interesting.

00:17:43:14 – 00:18:09:01
I wouldn’t get back to them that much and find anything interesting. I wouldn’t sell them, but that’s not what they’re sold for. So they’re decent. I mean, for the price it’s pretty good value. We do have tons, much more interesting wines on the club from really tiny selected producers. That’s going to be a totally different story. You can check them out again in the description.

00:18:09:02 – 00:18:15:11
And for me, I will see you soon in the wonderful world of wine. Cheers!