Little Jonathan 2006 Merlot - Sunday, Dec. 27th

My friend, Ryan, is a curious creature. His liquor purchases aren't based on excellent reviews, good reviews, or any review at all. He purchases liquor and wine not by word of mouth advertising, print/television advertising, or any advertising at all. No, Ryan purchases his alcohol based on novelty value. One of his stand-by wines is the Red Zeppelin which he originally bought due to the label. One of his favorite wines are what he affectionately calls "baseball wines", which proudly feature pictures of baseball players on it and classy names as "Schilling Schardonnay" and "Wakefield CaberKnuckle". The first time he ever listened to a recommendation was when I said that the Georgia Moon Corn whiskey will taste like...well...corn. He liked that.

It is rare that I get alcohol based on sheer novelty value. However, when a bottle of Little Jonathan 2006 Merlot showed up at my door (courtesy of the Last Word PR firm, for full disclosure purposes), I was thrilled by sheer novelty value alone. It was Little Jonathan wine. If you can't guess by the title of this post, this can be colloquially shortened to "L'il Jon". Yeah, the rapper. If you don't know who this is, let me refresh your memory:



Did you know that L'il Jon has a wine? I didn't. The better question is: is it worth drinking?



My answer - YEAH! Here are the notes:

The nose is full and luscious. First pour after opening was heavy on a smoked meat and pepper smell, almost like peppered jerky. Om nom nom. It had notes of chocolate and, oddly enough, green apple. Cooked red fruits were there too, like a cherry pie sans crust.

The taste was sweet on the forefront than expected. It is mellow and smooth, with hints of raspberry and light but pleasant sulfur that balances a rather strong flavor of honey. Letting it breath brings out the cooked fruit flavor from the nose.

This...surprisingly...was a pretty decent wine. I won't lie, I wasn't expecting it to be good but its quite decent. Not overly complex and I don't think it would age well beyond more than a few years but fresh it's pretty damn good. I'd drink it with a medium-rare steak. I'd also drink it with L'il Jon too.

OK!