O’Vineyards, Trah Lah Lah

I often review wines sent to me as media samples and always include a disclosure of that fact in those reviews. In this case I need to provide several disclosures, so let’s get that out of the way up front:

• This wine is produced by the family of a friend of mine, Ryan O’Connell
• The bottle I tasted for this review was sent to me as a media sample by Naked Wines, which also happens to be where Ryan works
• Naked Wines was also the Elite sponsor of the Wine Bloggers Conference I recently attended and I tasted this wine there too.

Now that we have all that out of the way, let’s talk about the wine. It was produced at O’Vineyards in southern France, Carcassonne in the Languedoc-Roussillon wine region to be more specific. The winery is owned and operated by Ryan’s parents, Joe and Liz. In addition to producing wine, they have a B&B at the vineyard. So if you’re looking for a place to stay in southern France, you might consider their place.

Trah Lah Lah is a blend of merlot and cabernet sauvignon. It is produced with an old-world style, which means the fruit isn’t going to punch you in the face. In my opinion, it’s a more balanced style than new world wines which tend to be more fruit forward and higher in alcohol.

This wine has a nice balance of fruity, earthy and spicy characteristics. The nose opens up to reveal aromas such as plums, dried cherries, pencil shavings, black olives and violets. A bright acidity on the palate brings cherry and blackberry flavors to life at first, followed by some more earthy and spicy flavors such as coffee and black pepper. The mouthfeel has a nice texture but could be more velvety. Dried cherry flavors linger on the finish for ages.

Overall, I say “yah, yah, yah” to Trah Lah Lah.

It’s available for purchase on NakedWines.com, where it sells for $19.99 or just $10.99 for their “Angels” as they call them, which are members who contribute $40 per month to their account. The idea behind Naked Wines is Angel-funding for wine. The money contributed by Angels is used to crowd fund wine production, but the money contributed by Angels is also reflected in their accounts and they can use that account to buy wine and you get a discount on that wine for being an Angel. It all sounds like a pretty cool program, but if you want to become an Angel you best sign up to their waiting list — at the time I’m writing this they have a waiting list over 20,000 people long, but according to their site they expect the wait to be only about a month long.

Wine: O’Vineyards, Trah Lah Lah
Varieties: Merlot 65%, cabernet sauvignon 35%
Vintage: 2014
Alcohol: 13%
Rating: 88
Price: $19.99
Disclosure: This wine was provided as a media sample.