I simultaneously love and dislike the label on Riverstone. I love what they did with the topographic map pattern on the front label, reinforcing the river theme. The shade of blue they used is really pleasant and calming. The blue really stands out among the sea of white and red labels that make up the rest of the red wine section. You really can't help but notice it on the shelf, even if it wasn't literally the cheapest bottle available. My biggest issue with it is that I immediately associate the color with blueberry. The association is so strong that there is a solid couple seconds every time I see this bottle where I think the rocks on the label are actually blueberries. Even today, seeing it for probably the 50th time, I picked up the bottle and read the back label just to make super-duper sure that I didn't miss the blueberry reference. I love blueberries, so I get really excited at the prospect of a blueberry wine, and it disappoints every time.
What the back label does promise are "ripe, soft berry flavours". So, I guess that doesn't technically preclude blueberries from being involved, but I tend to read "berry flavour" in more-or-less the same way I read "citrus flavour". That is, there's not going to be anything recognizable, here, it'll just be generally sweet. Calling back to Wolf Blass Shiraz from a few weeks ago, Riverstone boasts of it's smoothness. In the Wolf Blass review, I speculated that "smooth" was code for high alcohol content. Riverstone sits at 13%, which is higher than average, but not exceptional. 13.5% seems to be the highest that is relatively common, and the Wolf Blass was 14%. In another connection with the Wolf Blass, the other flavor mentioned in the description is "savoury oak".
Now, what we learned with the Wolf Blass was that Australia has their own species of tree that they refer to as an oak, even though it is actually a type of Eukalyptus. However, Riverstone is a New Zealand wine, so presumably they wouldn't be referring to the same tree. Is there a "New Zealand oak"? Is it just referring to North American and European oaks? Once again, I'll need to read up on the common names of tree species' before I can make a final call about whether the wine meets the expectations set forth by the description on the label.
The back label rounds off with a recommended pairing of pizza, pasta, or red meat. I'm going to give points for having the balls to recommend pizza as a pairing option on your bottle of wine, but I'm also going to deduct some points for the vagueness of simply recommending "pasta". Every bottle of wine goes with pasta, you've gotta be more descriptive than that. There's a million different ways to prepare the million types of pasta that exist, the least you can do is give me a sauce color.
The last interesting thing about the outside of the bottle is that it doesn't seem to feature a vintage year. The year being on the bottle is something so ubiquitous that I had assumed until now that it was required. For $8.99, presumably it's from within the last year or two, but it's interesting that it was excluded. Maybe bottles from the current year, don't need to be labeled? I'll have to keep a lookout for any 2016 bottles next time I'm in Foursquare.
Opening the bottle and pouring the first glass, it's distinctly not citrusy or sour smelling, relative to the other bottles. It's much softer; more subtle. Raspberry is the immediate connection that I made, but that's not quite right. I think that's as close as I'm going to get, though. Only so much you can get from "mixed berry". It's a deep, deep red in color, almost approaching black. There is no light making it through the glass, whatsoever, it's entirely opaque. The first swig is mostly just non-descript sweetness. There's no flavor that stands out as being particularly overbearing, or even notable. It finishes on a distinctly more bitter note that could either be the oak, or just the alcohol. All in all, it's much more juice-like than any of the previous bottles I've reviewed here. I'll be back after a few more glasses...
So, I've had about two-thirds of the bottle. It still is mostly just playing as fruit juice. The bitter ending has given way to a little bit of a more sour note, though not mouth-puckeringly so by any means. It's been a pretty easy to get down drink since the start.
I looked into oak trees, as well. There is a tree that was once referred to as the "New Zealand oak" relatively commonly, but it's more commonly know by its Maori name, titoki, now. It's from a genus that I know nothing about, native exclusively to Southeast Asia and Pacific islands. So, I can only assume that the savoury oak found here is in reference to North American and/or European oaks.
I also did some research on vintage dates. I've always assumed that the vintage of a wine referred to the date it was bottled, but apparently that isn't the case. It actually refers to the year the grapes were picked, and it's not uncommon to have grapes from multiple years in the same bottle. When that occurs, it's not uncommon to not give a vintage. I couldn't find anything specific to New Zealand, but apparently getting other fruit besides grapes involved also complicates the process of putting on a vintage date in some places. Who'd have thought I'd actually learn some wine stuff while reviewing wines?
Final grading time. Just looking at the bottle for pure aesthetics, it's very strong. It's minimalist, but something about it really draws me in. I might just be a crazy person with all my associations with that particular shade of blue and blueberries, so I won't dock too much for that. I think a B+ feels about right. I really like the topographic map label. For the actual drinking, this is a wine that's made to be drunk like I'm drinking it. Just crack the bottle, and drink until you don't feel like drinking, anymore. There's no subtlety to the taste, there's nothing gained from putting extra effort into appreciating it. It doesn't have any delusions of being anything more than a means of someone getting drunk. As someone who is a big fan of crunk music, I can respect that mentality. Not every bottle needs to be a transformative experience for the drinker. Sometimes people just want to get shit-faced, and there needs to be products to accommodate that. So i think I give the drinking experience a B. That puts the average somewhere between a B and B+. I'll give it the B+ bump because of the educational x-factor. I learned about both trees and wine vintages this week!
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