We were never fans of the horror movies from the 60’s and 70’s,  Nope.  Lon Chaney, Bela Lugosi, and the rest of the horror film actors weren’t on our radar screens.  You know they never made Tiger Beat, Seventeen, Sports Illustrated or Popular Mechanics!  In other words, they were stars for a different audience.  When Brian was growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, every Saturday night on WGN, there was a show called, ‘Creature Features’, and inevitably one of the Dracula, Frankenstein, Werewolf or other horror shows was televised.  Not his cup of tea.  Looking back on those films of yesteryear, we laugh (respectfully, of course) at the make-up, the costumes, the sets and the cinematography.  Really?  We shouldn’t have been concerned.  While a couple of generations were scared out of their wits by these monsters of the past, compared to the stuff out there today, those movies seemed like Laurel and Hardy comedies.  Well, not really, but it sounded good!

As the story goes, Dracula was from Transylvania; which according to modern Geography, means that he was from Romania.  There have been profiles of the area in Romania that was the origin of Dracula and many a scary movie has been filmed in the same area.  The whole concept of drinking blood. . .well it’s kind of out there, and not really appealing.  Seriously, we thought that enjoying a different bottle of wine every night for a year was strange. . .compared to drinking someone else’s blood, the wine seems pretty tame in the big picture.

Which is what brought us to tonight’s wine. . .a 2010 Munte Vinu Feteasca Neagra wine from Romania.  Yes ladies and gents…this wine is from romania! It reminds us a bit of a California Merlot, with its lush dark fruit, raisin, and vanilla notes.  It finishes very dry with hints of black pepper and smoke….on the other hand, it’s extremely tart on the first tasting, it warms up but not enough to salvage the bottle and even though it’s priced competitively at less than $9 a bottle, it’s still over-priced.  Okay, let’s face it, if the Romanians are going to make wine, one could assume that the vines have been around for a long, long time.  One could also assume that wine making techniques of the 21st Century would have improved the product quality produced from grapes harvested from older vines.  Not so much.  Here is a case of a value-priced wine that gets left at the starting gate.  The nose, taste, finish and overall product quality just don’t measure up.  Having previously tried 347 different wines, we felt really good about trying this, the 348th different wine, however, the end result was disappointment.

So, Dracula may have been forced into a life of drinking blood because the wine–having been the only other choice–was just too bitter and disappointing to consume, and let’s face it, if there isn’t good wine, then why bother!  In some respects, tonight’s wine was a lesson in history.  When the wine is bad, people will drink just about ANYTHING other than BAD wine!  On a more serious note, you can do a LOT better than Munte Vinu for your next wine purchase; even with an attractive price tag, we’re pretty sure that you’ll find something better.

But, remember to enjoy your ‘something better’ responsibly and recycle whenever possible.