Happy Camper - Merlot

Price: $7.99
Region: California
Year: 2004

This week I didn't have time to go to the store myself and pick out something to review. In fact, I was busy both Friday, and Saturday night, so I didn't even get to enjoy a glass of wine either night. Luckily we had dinner with my wife's parents, on Sunday, which always involves a bottle of wine. In this case, it was something I had not only never tried before, but to be honest had never even seen on the store shelves before. Since my father-in-law and I usually shop at the same wine store, I knew it was something I could have stumbled across before, but just hadn't.

Anyway, the wine that was out to have with appetizers before diner, was a bottle of Happy Camper Merlot. I must admit my first impression was to laugh a little at the name, but there are plenty of wines today whose name is squarely based on a marketing ploy. So, I decided not to have any biases up front, and give it a try. The color was a little weak, but overall not too bad. What you would expect from an inexpensive Merlot. When I took a sniff, I really had trouble picking up any noticeable smell at all. I gave it a nice firm swirl to see if I could get anything the second time, and that didn't seem to help very much. When I took my first taste, it was a little stronger then the smell, which was almost non-existent, but not too much. It was smooth enough, and tasted just fine, but was kind of short in length and fairly nondescript. My overall impression is that if you are having a big party at your house, this would be a very safe bet to serve. I don't think you would get a lot of complaints since it is rather bland, but you won't get an rave reviews either.

Rating: 2.75 corks - (Rather tame Merlot. Maybe try for your next party)