An ongoing tasting of wines under the $10 mark, accessible in Vancouver, that we will post about regardless of whether we loved it or it was absolutely putrid.  We will wade through bottles of bad plonk to find those hidden gems around town and hope that in doing this, you won’t have to do the same.

Ciao Sangiovese - Terre di Chieti IGT

I picked this flashy tetra pack up from the local LDB for $13.99 (it’s 1 Liter, so it works out to be around $10.49 for a standard 750 ml unit). I decided to buy it for a few reasons: I’ve never tried a wine out of a tetra pack and decided I would benefit from the light-weight tote-ability, and this was the first tetra pack I’ve seen in the BCLDB’s slowly expanding section of certified organic wines (that is, wine made with organically grown grapes).

My Tasting Notes:
A mix of smokiness and fruitiness on the nose - raspberry and cherry characters, hints of a strange milky component. All-in-all, somewhat sangiovese like bouquet. Medium acid with low-medium tannins, definitely a fruit driven focus. Character-wise, things on the palate start to get a little weird… cherry cough syrup and sour cranberries up front with a spiced fruit/”cinnamon hearts” notes. The finish leaves off with a sour milk and very slight cilantro taste. Not too pleasant at all.

Overall, I’d say this wine is poor. Disjointed, with some strange “manipulated” tasting characters showing through. From a marketing standpoint, they’re obviously relying on flashy packaging, appealing to a “green” consumer with their low carbon footprint container and organic farming practices. Not to mention the help that the LDB is giving them with placement - by putting them in a specific shelf space of the store. Too bad the actual product isn’t very good. I can’t think of a reason to recommend this to anyone.

If you want something cheap and want to keep with a green theme, head over to the Chilean section and grab a bottle of Cono Sur (an increasingly environmentally conscientious large producer) for $10.99. Also pick up the latest issue of National Geographic which goes into some depth about wine shipping and their carbon footprints…bottles shipped from port to port (ie. Santiago, Chile to Vancouver) produce far less CO2 than if trucks get involved. I’ll keep on the lookout for a tetra pack of wine worth recommending!