Table of Contents
The McClean Vineyards Love Red Blend is a non-vintage Red Blend that sells for $13.89 at Costco. The price on the internet varies from $15 to $27. McClean Vineyards no longer has a webpage and they have not updated their social media in 6 months to over a year. This wine seems like a close-out or a liquidation, which would be bad for the winery but good for wine drinkers. Most of the wine sellers from over a year ago had this wine priced at over $20.
The blend is unique, Zinfandel, Syrah, Primativo, Petite Sirah, and Grenache Blanc (a White grape). McClean was/is a small boutique, hand-crafted winery specializing in Syrah from Paso Robles.
The McClean Vineyards Love Red Blend is a non-vintage wine meaning that one or more of the grapes came from a different vintage than the others. McClean typically produces Paso Robles wine, but the Love is a Central Coast AVA wine. They likely did not grow most or all of the grapes.
The blend is so specific that they had to seek out vineyards that grew these grapes. Zinfandel and Primativo are the same grape. Primativo comes from Puglia in Italy and Zinfandel is the California name for that grape, though they may be two different close of the same varietal. Why this is a non-vintage wine is not specified, sometimes a certain grape needs more oak aging to balance, so an earlier vintage works well with a more recent harvest. A reason why it is non-vintage does not jump out.
The McClean Vineyards Love Red Blend back label says “vinted and bottled by”, which means that they didn’t produce the wine, but did bottle the wine. That is not so strange. Since this is a wine that seems to come from mostly contracted vineyards, McClean Vineyards could have formed an LLC company to do that work to produce the wine and then used its bottling line.
Often non-vintage wines have a lower-quality reputation, but I do not think that is the case here, it seems to be a bespoke Red Blend. The alcohol content is exactly 15.42%.
The McClean Vineyards Love Red Blend Tasting Notes
The color is a barely see-thru garnet red with black highlights. The nose is bright red berries, a solid dose of spice, a savory note, dark chocolate, strawberry, a little mint, and tangerine. The McClean Vineyards Love Red Blend is both bright and juicy, and rich and savory.
This Red Blend tastes like extracted blackberry, raspberry, black licorice, exotic spice, and pomegranate. The midpalate shows grilled mushrooms, dried strawberry, cooling blueberry, and tart cherry.
The tannins are sweet but have an edge to them, and the acidity allows the flavors to fully unfold.
The Summary
- The McClean Vineyards Love Red Blend is a mystery wine, is it a $27 wine on close-out?
- Why is it non-vintage?
- Is McClean Vineyards still a working winery?
- Just the same, this wine is very tasty and well worth seeking out.
