2001 Beau Verall Merlot (Russian River Valley)

[Drew]

Can the labels get any goofier? A goateed gentleman standing in a vineyard setting wearing blue jean overalls with bow tie and red gamblers hat. Well the owner of one of my favorite wine haunts convinced me to try it and it's a winner. Deep plummy and chocolately with a long finish accentuated by a wave of fine grained tannins. Nice fruit forward, balanced Merlot that was a joy to drink. I was told that the juice in this bottle is the same as the $20 Toad Hollow Merlot. 14.1%Alc/vol. $11.

Drew

[Thomas]

Drew,

Is it actually the juice or the wine that is the same as Toad Hollow? Since reds are fermented on the skins, I'd have to believe it is the wine that is the same, and if that is true, then why would anyone pay $20 for the Toad?

In any event, sounds like a nice wine.

[Drew]

Supposed to be the same wine and my wine guy professes to some inside knowledge re. to this. I googled in an attempt to find any discussion and found zip...maybe he was just trying to get me to buy this stupid looking bottle. [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/eek.gif[/img]

Drew

[Thomas]

I get it.

A lot of times the sales rep for the distributor gives out either bad or confused information. It's likely the wine is not the same, but the grapes may have come from the same vineyard, or the winemaker at Toad might be moonlighting, or the stars were in alignment with the Toad when this wine was made and so it took on the Toad's characteristics, or the sales rep was just babbling.

The only other alternative is that your retailer is correct, and that would make me angry if I were to have dropped $20 on a bottle of the "named" brand that I could get for $11 under another name. You know, the way you feel about paying for Tylenol as opposed to a twin generic...

[Drew]

I would agree and am half tempted to purchase the $20 Toad and see fer meself...

DRew

[wondersofwine]

As to the goofy label, sounds like the producer wanted to call it Beau Verall for some reason (a geographic designation?) and used the "overall" figure as sort of a comic representation (similar to Goats do Roam and some of Randall Grahm's wine names). Or possibly its the other way around and they chose the overalled gent as the symbol first and then a Frenchified name to back it up.

[hotwine]

How dare they misappropriate my image for a wine label?! Bib overalls are my uniform of the day....

[Drew]

The bottle explains the name comes from the fact that the gentleman is wearing a bow (beau) tie and overalls...Beau Verall.

Drew

[winoweenie]

Now isn't that sweet. WW

[Georgie]

Very cute.