Is 19 CRIMES Cali Rosé Wine GOOD???

This is a wine that those of us in the industry like to poo-poo on. So how will it stack up against other rosé wines that us wine nerds like to geek out on? If you're new to the channel, my name's Matthew. I've been in the wine industry just under 10 years. I judge about six to seven international wine competitions every single year. For seven years, I was traveling around the wine world without a home, learning about the great regions of the world and the people behind the bottles. 19 Crimes is a brand a lot of people see in the supermarket shelves. It's not really associated as a fine wine, but ironically, its parent company, Treasury Wine Estates, also owns Penfolds, which makes one of the most sought after, one of the most collectible red wines in the world, the Penfolds Grange. There's still one month of summer. Rosé wine is a great wine to drink during the hot summer days, but it's also a wine to drink all year round. There's a lot more complexity than wine people give it credit for. Contrary to belief of many, rosé wine is not just a blend of white and red wines, except in sparkling wines, especially champagne, where it's permitted. High quality rosé wines are made in two different ways. You use red wine grapes, you crush the grapes, they spend a little bit of time on the skins, that's where they gain the color, and then you ferment them, turn them into a rosé wine. Another way is called the Sagnier method, is when they crush red wine grapes, that they're gonna make high quality red wine, they bleed off a little bit of that juice. That juice that bleeds off is used for rosé wine, and then the red wine left over in that batch becomes a more concentrated, make powerful red wine. But traditionally the best rosés are made in that first method, the crush method, because you're growing grapes specifically to make rosé wine. Brands like 19 Crimes are going for a different type of consumer. Usually casual wine drinkers have a different palate, they're looking for different things than the palates of us wine nerds. Us wine nerds like these subtle complexities, we usually like earthy and mineral tones, we usually like wines with less residual sugar, which I'm expecting this Snoop Dogg Cali rosé to have, but who knows, I haven't tasted this before. I have done a tasting of all 19 Crimes red wines, I did that a few years ago, I'll pin it in the top comment. Who knows though, when we blind taste this, maybe this is like the best rosé ever. Let's get tasting. Got some affordable wines tasting out of an affordable glass, this is the Rovesia hand blown glass. It's a burgundy shaped glass, but I find it works well with all types of wines. I'll put a link in the description box. I Coravin these, or took the screw cap off, poured them, and had somebody mix them up for me. All these wines range from $14 up to about $22. That's the cool thing about rosé, they're usually affordable, so sometimes you can get great value for money, with the exception of the rosés from Tavel and the Southern Rhone. Rosés vary in color, but it's trendy to have more of the Provencal, the more lighter salmon color rosés like this one. That's what consumers want more of these. I like darker rosés, even with a touch of tannins, but those are not friendly with consumers. You're gonna find those types of rosés in the South of France, namely Tavel, Cyprus. There's a lot of rosés in the South of Italy, especially in Puglia. Rosatos, they call them. Let's smell this. This is awesome. This is like watermelon, minerals, gunflint, like crushed rock type flavors, strawberry for days. Man, this is, like rosé is a wine that, you know, it's having its moment for a while, for a couple of years. So why not to sleep on? They're so fruit friendly, and they can be absolutely delicious. Even though rosés are not the most expensive, they're some of the more difficult wines to make, especially when you make them in that crush method that I was talking about. You wanna make sure the juice doesn't oxidize too much. You wanna keep it fresh. I've had a lot of winemakers say, if I'm going to a new country or visiting a new producer, I wanna taste their rosé, because that'll tell me what kind of winemaker they are. This is absolutely brilliant. Sometimes rosés can be too fruity, or they can be too acidic. This has everything balanced. That strawberry watermelon fruit, almost like a watermelon jelly rancher, combined with those mineral flavors, and like a lemony acidity. Wine one is just straight up awesome wine. Let's go to two. Wine two, a little bit darker. Let's take a look here. This smells like bruised strawberry, kind of a bruised cherry flavor. It's not explosive at all. It's not floral. Yeah, it just smells like, almost like, it's like the different, like the first one was like a fresh strawberry juice, or a fresh juice. This is like concentrated juice, or the juice that you're gonna get in the supermarket. So maybe this is the 19 crimes. It's dull. It's got a chemically like smell. And the palate is really sweet. It literally tastes like, like strawberry juice. There's a touch of tan. Like I can see, I don't know, this might be the dead ringer. I can see why a lot of people like this because of the sweetness. But for me, man, this is like not exciting at all. I have to say on the palate, it's not bad. The nose was not very good, but the palate was just not very exciting. It's just syrupy, like sweet juice. Doesn't, oh no, let's move on to three. I think that was the Snoop Dogg Cali Rose. You know, those wines are made for a different market, but man, well, let's see the reveal. Let's go to number three here. Three is floral, which I like. It smells like it has quite a bit of fruit. It's not as bright and minerally as wine number one, not as syrupy as two, but you do have ripe fruit flavors. Ripe strawberry, like a little raspberry. It's a little bit floral, which makes it kind of different, not mineral. This could, I guess I could see being really popular with consumers. Three isn't popping. I mean, it doesn't, I want a little bit more acidity. However, I can see a lot of people liking this rose. Wine geeks sometimes like too much acidity. I love Riesling, for instance. It can be too sharp. It can sometimes feel like razor blades on the palate. A lot of people don't want that. They want wines that are a little bit softer, which I think people will go for this. It's just wine one was so stellar. Let's move on to four. Wine four has like some mushroom-type component going on. It smells like a wine that's a little bit tired, so to speak. It has some dried strawberry flavors. All wines, as they have bottle age, I think this might, I don't know, if it's tired, sometimes get those mushroom-type notes, some earthy-type notes. On the palate, it's fairly lively. Here's the problem when we had such a stellar rose like number one. Wine four, you have fruit up front, then the fruit falls off, and then you just kind of get acid water. It's a little bit disjointed. Let's go to the reveal. If you want to hang out with me and other wine geeks, check out channel memberships in the second tier, the Grand Reserve tier. I've organized a monthly live hangout tasting where it can come up on screen. Hang out, share your wines. We can just talk shop. I've also launched a live video podcast. Members of the Grand Reserve tier can come up on screen and ask a question, call in like a live radio show. It really supports the work that I'm doing here, so I appreciate it. I have one super exciting wine, one solid wine, and then a couple I don't really like. Let's start out with wine number two. It was a little bit sweeter, like on a nose for me. It just smelled chemically and fake. On the palate, it was okay. I think sweetness plays into a role. I think this was a Snoop Dogg Cali Rose. When you have a little bit of residual sugar, it hides a lot, just like too much oak sometimes can hide flavors on a wine. 81 points, 81 points. This is the 19 Crimes Cali Rose, 12% alcohol. California Rose wine, so they source their grapes from California. A lot of times, you know, California has super expensive wines. Last couple years, they've had a surplus of crops, so sometimes you can get grapes at next to nothing, and that's what they put in this. This is $14. This is pretty appalling for me at 14 bucks. I think that you can get a lot better roses, even under the $10 range. Here's the thing, you gotta get out of supermarkets if you want to drink nicer wines, or go to a higher-end supermarket, go to a bottle shop, ask somebody, ask the shop owner for recommendations, tell them the last wines that you've drank. They'll try to push you to wines that you're gonna like. That's not something I highly recommend, but you know what? People are gonna buy it and drink it anyway, so eh. Okay, wine number four. I have three, like, geeky roses here. Wine four was really disappointing to me. It was the one that smelled a little bit old. I had said that was the mushroom-type flavor, and it was disjointed on the palate. You know, all of a sudden, it was fruit, and then it was acid. None of these wines were faulty wines, just not my preference. 83 points. Wow, tough day for roses here. What do we got here? Good producer. This is the Cansumoy. This is the La Rosa 2022 from Penedes in Spain, in Catalonia. This is from the Grip Sumoy in Charelo. 22 bucks. Now, this is 2022. The current vintage on the market is 2023. Sometimes, I can find that roses can age well, and they can be exciting, but this one, in this case, is not. Maybe the new vintage will be better, but that's not so exciting. Okay, these other two I recommend. I think number three is gonna be kind of like the standard rose that's gonna be fun to drink. It's gonna be nice to bring to a party. I think people like the floral characteristics. Just one was so stellar. I gave this 87 points. I thought it was very, very, very good. Wow. This is the Cantina Olivella. This is the Vesuvio Rosato. This is from Mount Vesuvius, made from cool grapes. Piedroso, Guarnaccia, and Chiasinoso comes in at 20 bucks. I was at this estate about a month and a half ago, and I thought the rose was outstanding, but, you know, sometimes that happens. When you're there at the state, you can get fooled into thinking the wine's the best thing ever, because you're seeing all the views, talking to the winemaker. Still good, 87 points, 20 bucks. Now, I would much rather somebody drink something like this over the Cali Rose. Six dollars more, so it's one Starbucks cup of coffee more. Much, much better. Like I said, I'm showing you some geeky rose. I don't even know what the grapes are in the 19 Krems Cali Rose. I just think it's like a kitchen sink to just throw whatever grapes they can get. Usually, high quality roses from Provence, made of grapes like Garnaccia, Morvedra, Syrah, but I just wanted to show you geeky stuff. Wine one, I thought was outstanding, was an exciting rose, mineral, it was just balanced. I gave it 92 points. I thought it was outstanding, and it's cool because this rose is available. This is the Schloss Kellerai, so from Schloss Goebbelsburg. Cistercian Rose, 2023, made from these cool Austrian grapes. Zweigelt St. Laurent, this comes in at $19.99. I think this is outstanding. Again, one Starbucks more than drinking this, and this is worlds better. I think this is outstanding. This is, for me, stereotypical what a rose I want. That's the thing, man. Just get out of the supermarkets, go to a local shop, talk to an owner, you're gonna get great stuff like this. This was a very exciting rose. So tell me, do you like rose wines? Have you tried the 19 Krems Cali Rose before? I'd love to hear. Drop it in the comments below.