The Story
The Hopes End Red Wine Blend 2016 is a blend of 42% Shiraz/Syrah, 38% Grenache, 13% Malbec, and 7% Petit Verdot sourced from vineyards in South Australia (near Adelaide). Hopes End is one of Trinchero Family Estates line of wines, other brands include, Joel Gott, Menage a Trois, Folie s Deux, Charles & Charles, along with many others. South Australia is in the southern coast of central Australia, this is where the most well-known growing areas, Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale, and the Limestone Coast reside. This is a blend of 2 Rhone grapes, Syrah/Shiraz and Grenache, and 2 Bordeaux grapes, Malbec and Petit Verdot.
The Hopes End is a Brand wine that is available at Target for 10 bucks. Most value-priced Brand wines don’t go into great detail concerning the wine production and this blend is no exception. The technical notes mention “earthy vanilla” and chocolate which can be flavors derived from oak conditioning but make no mention of how the oak flavors got there. This is an off-dry wine, it has a little too much residual sugar to be classified a dry wine. But little sugar isn’t unusual for an inexpensive, ripe red blend. The alcohol content is a laidback for Australia, 13.5%.
The Tasting Notes
The color is a raspberry jelly red with black highlights. The nose is dark berries, and spice, dark chocolate, licorice, and extracted blackberry. This is a full-bodied blend with a good mix of softly rounded flavors and tart ones. It starts with black cherry, tart cranberry, ripe plum, and spice. Most of the flavor action is upfront, but the mid-palate does offer licorice, a little milk chocolate, and blackberry. The tannins stay out of the way, Grenache-based wines are often light on tannins and the acidity is balanced by the body of the wine. The finish lasts a long time.
The Summary
- The Hopes End Red Wine Blend 2016 is a crowd-pleaser, it may not wine accolades with the fine wine crowd, but it sure is tasty.
- I didn’t get the interplay between Grenache and Syrah that makes the Red blends of the Cotes du Rhone so enticing, but the Hopes End worked as a Red blend just the same.
