A Wine Guy Wine Pick From Ecuador

A lot of our new friends in Ecuador, both Expadorian and Ecuadorian, have discovered that one of the Yazells has a background in the wine industry.

As a result, it seems as though we are very frequently asked for reccommendations on how to buy a good affordable wine in Ecuador. It IS somewhat of a challenge here. The government imposes a 29% duty on imported alcoholic beverages and the number of domestic Ecuadorian wine producers are few. Ecuadorians, as a whole prefer beer or distilled alcoholic beverages so what few wines are produced here are limited in scope. I have written in the past about one Ecuadorian producer on my wine blog: Roger's Grapevine (www.rogersgrapevine.blogspot.com) and will featuring some more there in the future.

As a service to our new found friends and community, I thought I would regularly post here on this blog, a short wine review of a single value priced wine available at retail here in Ecuador. I hope our readers will find this information useful and helpful. I'll try to keep the wine postings here brief and to the point. Fuller, more in depth stories on my Ecuadorian wine experiences and wine in general will continue to appear on Roger's Grapevine.

O.K. Here goes with The Ecuadorian Wine guy's first value pick:

Vine de table de France is the lowest wine classification in France. However you wouldn't guess that just by the taste of B&G's non-vintage "Partager Vin de France". It is not a knock your socks off wine. It is a fairly well balanced and smooth red blend of Grenache, Syrah and Cinsault. It does benefit from a little airing out as the nose is a litte sharp straight out of the bottle. It has nice red and black fruit flavors, some tannins that are mostly soft and smooth and just a hint of a finish. This red blend shows just enough of the Syrah that to have a little Character that might be accented with some grilled meat dishes. It's price tag is right at $10 which is slightly higher than what this wine would typically sell for in the US but a very reasonable price for any French wine here in Ecuador. The bottle I sampled was found on the wine shelves at Coral Centro. If you enjoy a lighter, smoother red blend that hints of Pinot Noir with a little more structure, this might be worth a try.

Happy wine shopping and enjoy!