Snoop Dogg is better known for green herbs than red grapes, but apparently he does like a red wine on occasion (maybe all the time he spends with Martha Stewart?)… He likes it so much he’s created his very own wine—or someone has for him.
So is Snoop’s wine any good? Julien is here to tell us…
Transcript:
00:00:00:00 – 00:00:27:11
I suspect this is a wine made for pleasing a lot of people. Lots of fruit. The body is meh… Hello, bonjour, and welcome to your new Bonner Private Wines video where we learn about wine together weekly. And quite often we get to taste wines too, to find out if they’re any good or just pure marketing and useless. Today we’re tasting Snoop Dogg’s wine.
00:00:27:11 – 00:01:02:19
Not that Snoop is particularly famous for consuming wine, but apparently he’s partnered with a brand to have his face and name on a bottle. So we’re going to talk a little about where this wine comes from, its story, and then get tasting it. Snoop once said. If the ride is fly, then you must buy. Not entirely sure what this means, but at the end of the video, I’ll give a rating to this wine to see if the ride is more fly and tell you whether or not you should buy.
00:01:15:12 – 00:01:40:18
Let’s spend a minute or two talking about what this wine is, because to enjoy a wine better, well, the first step beyond the taste is to open the bottle and have a bit more, understand a bit more, about its context. So let’s get opening this wine. If I manage to talk and open at the same time. Did Snoop Dogg buy a vineyard or a winery to make his own wine?
00:01:40:20 – 00:02:06:15
I’m sure he’d have enough money to do that. But no, of course he didn’t. This seems to be a partnership with a wine making brand. I’m just speculating here, but I think someone makes the wine and they have an agreement to use Snoop’s name, but hopefully he likes the wine. Hopefully he likes the taste of it all. For which I would describe for you in a minute.
00:02:06:15 – 00:02:44:02
Hopefully he likes what this wine is all about. His own website, SnoopDogg.com mentions the wine, so this seems legit. It’s not just… he’s behind it. So who makes this? Well, it’s a brand called 19 crimes, which originally is a brand of Australian wines. Apparently, back in the days in Britain, there was a list of 19 different specific crimes that would get you deported as a convict to Australia, like grand larceny, stealing lead or iron or copper, or even impersonating an Egyptian.
00:02:44:04 – 00:03:22:06
I’m not sure what this is all about anyways. That’s what the brand is about. That’s why it’s called 19 crimes. This brand is now owned by a company called Treasury Wine Estates, which is a large global conglomerate of wine brands, mainly from Australia and the US. They own large brands such as Penfolds or Lindemans in Australia, or Beringer, Beaulieu Vineyards, Stag’s Leap or Etude winery in California, and they make commercial brands like 19 crimes to sell broadly in supermarkets worldwide.
00:03:22:08 – 00:03:52:24
And so that’s what these brand, this brand is, that’s what this wine is. This wine specifically is called Cali red, California red and is apparently made in California from California grapes, but no specific area, just generic California. The blend is not mentioned anywhere on the label or back labels, so it’s a little bit obscure. I guess they want to be able to blend whatever they have on hand at the winery.
00:03:53:01 – 00:04:22:04
And, you know, maybe change the blend a little bit. But Snoop Dogg’s website talks about Petite Sirah Zinfandel with a splash of Merlot. So kind of very old school California red blend. It’s at 12.5% alcohol, this 2021 vintage, and retails at around $10 a bottle, so it’s cheap. Interestingly, the bottle I was able to buy here in Europe does not mention the 19 crimes brand, while in the US it does.
00:04:22:04 – 00:04:45:24
So this is a bit of a commercial blur here between the global brand and the US packaging. Anyway, it’s all a bit commercial branding marketing stuff, but the important bit is tasting and what it tastes like. So let’s get tasting.
00:04:46:01 – 00:05:12:01
So what does Cali Red, Snoop’s Cali Red tell us at the tasting? It’s got a nice decent color. It’s pretty dark. Pretty deep red on the rim. So bright red it’s not evolved. It’s not young or youthful looking at it. It’s dark, it’s dense. Nothing special, but it looks pretty dense and nice and appealing. Let’s sniff.
00:05:12:03 – 00:05:38:04
Yes. Straight away. Lots of fruits. Lots of red berries. Gorgeous. Ripe, berries. You know, the fresh, blackberry definitely dominates. Yeah. Tons of berries. It’s quite spicy as well. Maybe the petite Syrah adds a bit of pepper as well, which it’s quite nice. It’s quite lifted the minty like peppermint as well. So it’s really lively.
00:05:38:04 – 00:06:03:03
It smells also to me like pressings. It smells, if you’ve ever worked at a winery, the pressings are when you press the grapes after the fermentation and that smells much like wine. It’s got a lot of what we call vinosity to the nose. Like it’s really definitely smells like wine. It’s not overly fruity. There is something in behind that’s tells you, oh, this is one, this is not a fruit juice.
00:06:03:03 – 00:06:25:17
This is wine; it’s got a bit of sort of vinegary, earthy character to the background on top of a lot of fruit. But let’s get tasting, which is going to tell us everything. Right.
00:06:25:19 – 00:06:47:14
Yeah. Yeah I quite like this wine. So again like on the nose there’s tons of fruit. An explosion of red berries. The body is soft and smooth as we expect from Zinfandel to wine Merlot I suspect this is a wine made for pleasing a lot of people. Lots of fruit. The body is meh.
00:06:47:16 – 00:07:13:24
It’s got some body. It’s okay, but not particularly big or anything. The tannins are soft, the balance is okay. And again, I find this vinousity, this earthiness, which I actually quite like it’s got a solid acidity that balances the fruit and the medium body quite well. It’s not warm. I was expecting maybe from California having something really big and sort of really sweet.
00:07:14:01 – 00:07:47:10
It’s a little bit sweet, but not overly so. 12.5% alcohol. So it’s an overall balanced wine. I like the fruitiness on front and the vinousity, the earthiness that definitely makes you think of a wine. So overall, I believe this is a wine that is made for be loved, be liked by pretty much anybody. Anybody can have a glass of this wine and think, oh, know that’s a pretty good, decent wine because it’s a bit fruity, it’s a little bit sweet, it’s not overly powerful, it’s a little bit earthy, it’s a little bit spicy.
00:07:47:13 – 00:08:12:17
So it kind of has everything. There’s not a ton of soul and depth to this wine, but we don’t really expect that from a $10 wine. So this is a crowd pleaser wine. Nice and acidic and refreshing. If you serve it a little bit cold or cooler then room temperature, which I would advise. And it’s going to be super versatile as well.
00:08:12:17 – 00:08:37:19
So conclusion. Well well done Snoop. If you wanted to make a crowd pleaser, a wine that everyone could get behind and enjoy. If you buy a bottle of this, you’re not going to get disappointed. You’re not going to get, super impressed either. To me, this is an 86/87 out of 100 points wine. It’s decent for the price.
00:08:37:19 – 00:09:01:06
It’s nothing extraordinary, but well done, Snoop. And the brand and the company making the wine behind. It’s well-executed. It’s solid value. For the price, I can recommend it for $10 wine. Give it a try someday if you get a chance. That was it for me. Watch more videos. Stay tuned to the channel. Subscribe if you want to continue learning together more.
00:09:01:08 – 00:09:20:14
I tasted a Brad Pitt wine not so long ago. Maybe you can watch this. I’ll see you soon in the wonderful world of wine. Cheers!
