2007 Il Cuore Rosso Classico

The facts:

2007 Il Cuore Rosso Classico
Region: Mendocino, California
Winemaker: Dennis Patton
Variety: 51% Syrah, 26% Zinfandel, 12% Sangiovese, 6% Carignane, 5% Merlot
Aging: “Modest oak barrel” aging according to their website

This wine is all about mixed messages for me. The label leads me to be skeptical.



I have a hard time taking wine seriously, when it has kitschy things on the label (like the hearts, cats, etc.). But this is a blend of Syrah, Zin, Sangiovese, Carignane (for some reason in California, they add an E on the end), and Merlot. I usually like a red blend, so that led me to be hopeful.

My take:

It looks purple in the glass and upon seeing it, we both remarked, “Well this is a California wine.” It smells purpley-black to me.

The wine is big up front and a bit of spicy in the middle, but more so if you’ve pulled air over it. If you’re just sipping it, the middle kind of falls flat. It has a rather long finish (maybe 10 to 15 seconds) – longer than I’d like, actually because I’m not a huge fan of the taste.

It tastes the same way it smells – purpley-black; almost like dull blackberries, as if they were not tart or sweet, but bland. Because it's a California wine, I expected a more intense flavor, but didn’t really get it. And then the finish is a bit gray.

I’d call it medium bodied and not dry.

Now, all that being said, I went and read up on the wine after tasting and describing it. Turns out Il Cuore is Italian for “the heart” and is a tribute to the Italian immigrants who first planted grape vines in Northern California. Sheds a bit of light on the label, which was designed by Dan Rizzie, a cubist artist. All that is well and good, but it doesn’t make me like the wine any better. It’s just not my style. (I did mention at the outset of this endeavor that I’m biased toward old world style wines.)

If you like California-style wines, you might enjoy this. I read other reviews that indicated this embodies a Northern California wine.

Price point:
$10 - $13 per bottle

2007 Il Cuore Rosso Classico

They say packaging is important, that it can draw you in and make you want to purchase or try a product. Or…. if you are me, it also has the possibility to make you completely discount a product and write it off entirely. Meet my friend Il Cuore. They decided to jazz up their label and put hearts all over the bottle. I'd say I'm not sure why, but the sheet we got with wine club went into detail about it, and its a bunch of crap that some clod in marketing wrote to try and justify it...or they are just chumps. True story. We aren’t talking about just one heart here, there are no less than 5 hearts on the bottle, the foil is even emblazoned with a heart. Awwww…. how precious. Gee…. maybe the hearts will prompt me to pick it for a romantic occasion OR maybe they will warm my black heart and get me all sentimental. Or more likely they will give me yet another reason to talk shit about Californian wines and reinforce my theory that they are, by and large, so devoid of character that they need to resort to clever packaging to ever have a chance of leaving the shelf when there are French, Spanish, or Italian wines in stock.

Ok…I feel better now. Or not. Hearts people…. Seriously? Why not just put a kitten on there? Or an Alien! With Lasers! And a robot. Now, that my friend, is a wine I would buy just because of the label! I should note I did, in fact, once buy a wine called Nostradamus, because A. It came in a clay jug, and B. It's named Nostradamus, and who isn’t going to buy an Eastern European wine named after the premier soothsayer of our time. I’m not sure that’s a good thing to admit but it’s neither here nor there.

On the plus side it’s a blend, weighing in with a good 51% Syrah 26% Zinfandel and 12% Sangiovese. Now I likes me some blends, and if anything can save a Cali wine, its going to be mixing some grapes together. And it works here for the most part.

Poured, the wine splashes into the glass with a warm purple-red hue. Its rich and dark and when swirled clings longingly to the side of the glass. The nose comes off a bit grapey for me but surprisingly low on the alcohol aroma. I wouldn’t call the aroma particularly complex, one good sniff and swirl and you can pretty much get its full measure.

Time to taste.

Gut reaction:
The wine deserves a better label. It doesn’t really suck badly enough to be festooned with brick brack and a cubist doily for a label. I found the syrah to give it a nice soft base on the pallet with the zinfandel punching it up and providing some wow factor (I’d note, that wow factor for me is typically unnecessary and generally what I dislike about Californian wines, I prefer them subtle). I don’t quite know what the Sangiovese is adding, but I found the wine to be balanced and there was no flavor or aroma that was glaringly out of place. It’s smooth, medium bodied and drinkable. Ultimately, the wine ends up being a bit jammy for my tastes, but if you tend to like the offerings of our Western coast, then you might want to give this one a try.

And one of these days, if you all behave and eat your vegetables like you are supposed to, I will let you in on my dirty little secret and tell you about the Californian wine I adore.