• Basic info: I Vasari, Old Vines Montepulciano d’Abruzzo (Italy), Barba 2011
• Type: Red
• Price estimate: $15 (at Total Wine)
• Look: Garnet, deep plum color. Some legs, maybe medium alcohol.
• Smell: Jam.
• Taste: Bright up front, rounding to a sour finish. Very tart and no fruit. Medium body. (Bob got sour up front and acerbic with some tannin and a little mineralogy.)
• Conclusions: Not a good wine as it was just too sour. I’m not sure if we got a bad bottle or if that is the way the wine is supposed to taste, but neither of us finished a glass. Food did not help the flavor, either and the more I tried to drink it the less I liked it.
• Other notes: Bob and I are usually pretty excited about Barbas and other slightly less known varietals, especially Italian wines. I wanted to like this wine, but it just didn’t taste good. Bob described it as having a “sticks and stems taste,” which I didn’t get, but then again, I was getting mostly sour and taste.
• From the bottle: “Very intense ruby color, this wine denotes an intense and complex bouquet that combines cherry with different spice flavors, rich aroma with scents of black cherry, plum, blackberry.”  13.5% alcohol by volume.

*I should note that we get wine from a few places. We loved the Oregon wine so much when we went last summer, we joined a wine club that sends six bottles every six months. We still have about a dozen wines from our trip, most of which we are saving for special occasions. We also have a local wine club that is two bottles each month and we sometimes pick up a few bottles at that store. We do get most of our wine from the alcohol store (as we call it) because, well, it is convenient. So while most of the price estimates will be prices from Total Wine, not all of them will. Most of the wines I buy are between $15 and $30, with some a little lower and every now and then, higher. Also, yes, I tend to pick out the wine, but not always and it can be weeks from when I read the description or taste it in the store to when I open the bottle at home; I’m not reading the label or tasting notes before tasting and making my own notes.