Barefoot Wine & Bubbly – Barefoot Pinot Noir (2016)

barefoot-pinot-noir

Surely somewhere Bacchus flicks this wine from his table with an irritated grimace. Making decent wine is not hard, but this is the updated version of plastic jug wine from the 1990s but given the “California sheen” of a unique label and hip, exciting, and different backstory.

At first sip, I thought I had picked up a jug of Randall’s generic vinegar. Then in surged the grape sensation, brief and fleeting, with a strong acidity yet also a heavily fruity taste. The $6 they wanted for this was $4 too much, to be blunt: this wine hits hard with moderate alcohol, but delivers in flavor what one might expect from a Capri Sun left to ferment in a locked pickup truck.

I realize that a huge intermediate market exists for people who want a cheap tipple without the negative implications of bringing home a well-known brand of alcoholic soccer mom wine. If that alone is your goal, Barefoot Pinot Noir becomes comfortable after the second glass. It has a pleasant color and sheen, but a one-dimensional flavor of acidic fruit that drives me to the hills.

Thankfully, its relatively strong alcohol content means that the sensation is fleeting, but unlike a good wine, the alcohol hits up front and the flavor lags behind, which is probably fortunate because it is both relatively unexceptional and pretentiously strong. If you are working the cougar circuit in the outer suburbs, you will probably drink quite a bit of this.

Wine presents a troubling face to the consumer because it is oversold and as a result, an emphasis on catchy labels and backstories replaces the simple question of Is it good? Here the answer is that this might be a C+ wine, but for the price difference, you might as well take home the gallon jug.

Quality rating: 1/5
Price rating: 2/5

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7 thoughts on “Barefoot Wine & Bubbly – Barefoot Pinot Noir (2016)”

  1. Fermented menstrual juice says:

    A day of sobriety is a day wasted.

  2. Roger says:

    GET FARKED WITH YOUR FOOD AND WINE REVIEWS. MOST PEOPLE DON’T HAVE THESE BRANDS AVAILABLE TO THEM ANYWAY! THIS ISN’T A FUCKING LIFESTYLE BLOG.

  3. Rainer Weikusat says:

    With all things duly considered, the product placement does become a bit obsuring at the moment.

  4. matters says:

    Have you considered reviewing wines or coffees from musicians?

  5. OliveFox says:

    You gotta up your game with the booze you buy my friend. It may be hard to justify paying 30 dollars for an average wine (you have to get into the 70s AND know the brand, vineyard, etc…for a truly amazing experience.), but even a mid range Coppola will give you a much better drink experience, despite its hyped up, mainstream status.

    I love wine, but I really only drink it with a meal or with nice cheese. Which…is essentially every day, but never with the thought of getting intoxicated. My thought is, if you are drinking wine to get drunk or buzzed, you are completely off. A decent whisky, bourbon, or gin can be purchased in the 20 to 40 dollar range and stretches its value much better than cheap wine, I believe. Not only do you get drunk quicker, but you train your taste-buds and palette to differentiate between the much more intense experience of liquor, and you eventually get to a point where the subtle nature of spirits can be truly interesting.

    Obviously, the expensive and fleeting nature of good booze makes it impractical, irresponsible, and wasteful to dive into. BUT, as I was once told by an elderly man at a VFW, “good liquor can make the common man feel as a king.” As a common, blue collar zilch myself, this approach only makes sense the older I get. Springing the extra money for seriously good liquor, wine, or whatever, makes for a memorable and informative experience (perhaps not king-like, but whatever), and keeps you from over drinking and fucking your life up because…fund wise…you couldn’t possibly get any more.

    For example, I truly appreciate and remember the time I sprung for a $120 bottle of Talisker 18 with a friend. But every stupid bottle of Cutty or JB I’ve gotten is hardly relegated to a foot note in my mind. $175 for a bottle of Remy XO, damn right I remember when, where and who I drank it with…even what we talked about it and learned from each other. Hard to do that with cheap booze, in my opinion. Usually just a blur of vague humor, odd pranks, and shitty sex. Keep in mind, I am hardly wealthy. Pay my bills, take care of my family, and not much left over. But, saving for something special to drink as opposed to “saving” money on cheap stuff to drink more often, is something I don’t understand.

    I could be over-blowing a simple topic, but I seem to be one of the few people that don’t mind the lifestyle stuff on this site, I just want to throw my opinion in to see if it jives with the impetus of the reviews I suppose.

    If I finally get the time, energy, and will to write up a liquor or fine wine review, I will certainly do so.

    1. Jeff says:

      What of those sad cases who keep a cheapo by the side just for contingency? The bad part of being a functioning wino is that you know you’ll be needing more but couldn’t dare to exhaust the good stuff in one night.

      1. OliveFox says:

        Wouldn’t a bottle of Popov do the trick better? At a certain point if you stop drinking for pleasure, the poison itself is hardly relevant. Unless there is some middle ground I am unaware of. Though, if you are trying to hide a problem from family and friends, wine is the perfect thing. Even though the term “wino” exists, people are less judgmental if you drink a ton of wine as opposed to liquor, and possibly even beer. Not sure why, maybe it is some sort of middle class myth perpetuated by housewives and mediocre chefs.

        Anyhow, I didn’t say it earlier, but if you have a decent, privately owned liquor store in your town, support them instead of the supermarket or 7-11. That way, if you become friendly and known as an upstanding patron, you can talk them up and push for a certain quality and uniqueness in the spirits they stock, you purchase, and hopefully others try as well. Then maybe, just maybe, people can make a dent in the profits of macro-brewers, mainstream distillery and shill vineyards that trick hard working folks into thinking something is good just because it makes them drunk. Also, to hopefully oust the fraudulent hipster brands that claim authenticity without knowledge or craft (Green Hat gin, looking at you).

        The fuck am I talking about? Never realized I had so much to say on such an un-metal topic. Godflesh EP and “An Evil Shade of Grey” whilst I pound Salty Dogs and dig into some of the more off-beat bands in the DLA.

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