14 August 2022
Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc Marlborough 2022
A Sunday, mid-August, not too hot, not too cool, but better than most of the summer in Richmond. Finn and I were in Nevada a few weeks back, and despite the 110F+ weather, it was still more comfortable than Richmond at 88Fish, thanks to the repugnant humidity, that I somehow, and probably rightly, associate with conservativism as a whole. On my way home to the ugly burbs, I slammed into Total Wine and More, as is normal only to find an empty building, dotted with about 3 employees exhibiting such a profound amount of indifference, I normally would have left to avoid having all of my energy sucked out of me. However, this lot was less parasitic, and more just needy. The Biafran woman at the check out winced as she was conducting our small transaction, and I said she was too young to be [fucked] and she said she had been a car accident last year, leaving me feeling guilty and a right-prat. I said I was sorry for that, and indeed she can wince to hearts desire. What did I leave with? First up is the Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough 2022. Honestly, I don’t know what’s going on here, but this is a wine that I would have expected to be retailing around $20 in 2022. It was $11.47, which is odd in and of itself. Why is this so fapping cheap, and why is the price structured so very randomly? This is an older, icon brand, named after the bloke who founded the winery. Kim is no longer part of the organisation. In fact, he sold out and I don’t know what he is doing, nor if he is still of this earth. Either way, this was a fairly premium brand in the past, so how and why is Total fucking Twats selling this at this ludicrous price (in every sense) and therefore buying it for all of $7/bottle from their “wholesaler.” The quotation marks is because Total has forged a relationship with the ABC whereby they can openly bypass the same anti-monopoly laws that the rest of us must endure, in order to sell their private label brands for fuck-all. As a rule, I do not default to hating all governments and taxable entities, as I am proponent of civilisation, and therefore I am adult enough to understand why taxes exist, as much as I hate paying them like the next bastard. However, there is one agency of the state that I have no love for, thanks mainly to their anachronisms, their machismo, their entitlement tempered by self-righteous morality, born out of bible-belt bullshit, in a state that has well moved on, their collusion with huge corporations, and their abject fascism, which is well-documented, but I will not go into this here. The Virginia ABC sucks on so many levels. They are Orwellian, Brazilian, and still very unsexy and southern in their overall frumpiness. I hate them, and they hate me. You know what, I have digressed in every sense. Let’s carry on with this wine. As you may have gleaned, I drink a goodish amount of Sauvignon Blanc. This is not my glass today, which is interesting, as I was working earlier, and I did NOT have a Sauvignon Blanc on me table. I ordered one. This Kim Crawford in my glass is very pale, almost more white than yeller. It looks like Doug Margerum’s Sybarite on an unusually pale vintage, 2019, actually which was an unpleasant surprise, as it was the worst vintage I’ve every had of that, frankly, iconic wine. The nose smells like the grapefruit section of the produce department that is downwind from a cotton candy stand, all of which is typical. What is missing is the fruit elements, gooseberry? Passionfruit? Guava? Not yet, yo. We are still in the old world, with a new world wine. Drinking it, gives one more of the same, but with an added backbone of white pepper. Obviously, the acidity is mental, and a deeper nose inspection reveals some jalapeсo, almost Serrano in its vibrancy and high-toned pyrozine-ness. This is unique, in that it has 50% of obvious Kiwi-ness, and then the other typical 50% of usual suspects are suspiciously notable by their absence. It’s Non-Kiwi side is less French and more Italian, Friulian to be specific, in that it has an austerity to its minerality that is even more severe than French.