A Summer Sipper-Kung Fu Girl Riesling 2024

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Hey, domain Dave here, cheapwinefighter.com. As always, start them all off the same way. Today we got another uh value price wine. This is a wine that we've been reviewing off and not every vintage, but I think since 2016, maybe even before that. Uh today's wine is the Kung Fu Girl Riesling 2024. The reason why we're coming back to it, because I think we've done it about three or four times, not since 2020, is this is a wine that was originally by Charles Smith Wines. Charles Smith is an interesting character. Uh he was a roadie for the Ramones, uh, went to Europe and he managed Swedish rock and roll bands. And while in Europe he got a taste for wine, and when he got took his money back home to uh Washington State, he told everybody that his father taught him winemaking, though that hadn't happened. He just thought he could do it. And he started making wines and he did do it. And then like almost immediately, his wines were very popular, and he started, and his high-end wine started getting huge scores. So um one of the things he's always done is he's established a brand, and once it got set to go, he would sell it. And this is one of the uh brands, even though his name, Charles Smith, is still on the back label, he sold it. And in the 2020 vintage was owned by Constellation Brands, and it's been sold twice since then. And I I did it's not because of this wine, I think because the wine industry is a mess. Um, so it's on its uh fourth owner at the moment. I'm thinking, is it still the same? Because it used to be like a cornucopia in a glass of wine. It had all these um, I used to like to uh review this around Thanksgiving because it had all these harvest flavors, and it kind of fit everything. And uh it's not so much harvest flavors now, but it's still good. And uh back in the 2020 vintage, it was a single vintage wine. It wasn't always single vintage. The one thing about Charles Smith is that he would always tell you what vineyards he used, and he would he would give you a little bit of information that just gave you some insight into the wine. Um now it's I there's still a page that tells you about things, but not the same. And this is from multiple vineyards in Washington State. Now, Washington State is mainly the Columbia Valley AVA. Uh there's a small boutique area that's not Columbia Valley up near Seattle, but they're small, and you don't get a lot of wine from there. And they said this is from the whole area. I don't know if it's the whole area might be from two different AVAs in there. I forget how many AVAs there are in Columbia Valley, like 13 or something. I'm gonna have a sip. It's sleek and it adds a little bit of spiciness to it, but not a lot. This is a dry Riesling. I'm not all that crazy about um sweet Rieslings. Um, they're okay, but I tend to like my wines dry. This has really nice flavor. This isn't the cornucopia uh um from Thanksgiving that it used to be. It's different now. It's got uh well, it's got the fourth owner, it's got different uh sourcing. I'm not sure who the winemaker is. Um, but it still seems to be worth the money, which is a good thing. It doesn't that they change, it's not the worst thing. Because, you know, things change. But um if it wasn't as good in it, still good. This is still a good reasoning, and it looks good. It's got a black, like a ink drawing of a kung fu girl on white paper. It's kind of a nice looking label. Should be 10, 12 bucks, it shouldn't be all that expensive. Put a chill on this. This this is this is go this goes from being a Thanksgiving uh feast wine to a summer sipper. It's crisp, it's got um it's got nectarines, it's got apple, it's got peach and pear, a little bit of tangerine, just a little bit. Um soft spice. It's pretty nice. It's uh got good acidity, it'll get you to take that sip before you think about it. And what else about it? Just a solid little Riesling. I sometimes forget about Riesling wines because you are you tend to only get them from um Germany, mostly Moselle. Moselle in Germany. If you see that in the label, that's like the best area for Riesling in the world. And then Washington State, and Washington State's been kind of odd lately. Uh uh Chateau Saint-Michel got sold again. They're owned by some corporate some uh finance company. They've been owned by finance companies for a while, and that kind of it's hard to get going in wine when you don't have wine people running it. Just took my third sip. It's a nice wine, it just it's a summer sipper, it's a patio pounder. It is a good patio pounder. Sometimes that means it's just uh uh all it's good for is like chugging it or something. No. This is a sipping one. This is this is sleek good. It's worth paying attention to as you drink it, and that's not bad for an inexpensive wine. So there you go, audio, let's keep it cheap. This is uh Dave from cheapwinefounder.com. Uh, we're checking in on the Kung Fu Guru Ruizley in 2024. It's had a long, long road in the last six, seven years, but it's still upright and on its feet and still tasting good. Maybe not the same, but you might think it's better. So it's audio, bye bye. Talk to you in a couple days.