Yellow Tail Gets ShitThis was probably the most benign statement I received from friends and random people I conversed with about last Friday’s nationwide [ yellow tail ] Reserve blind tasting (#TasteYTR.) Is there any other wine that has the public image equivalency of Gary Bussey? I doubt it.

But to participate in the straightforward, honest disclosure that I cherish here on Brokewino.com, my opinion of [ yellow tail ] isn’t much better. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever purchased a bottle of the stuff, and I am the Broke Wino after all.

So it was with much fear and trepidation that I joined 11 other Chicago winos—Jess from Wine Channel TV, Liz Menendez from Grapes of Life, Master Sommelier Fernando Beteta, to name a few—in a blind tasting of [ yellow tail ] Reserve Shiraz vs. a line-up of 3 other renowned wines (including a mystery $60 retail dinger.)

[ yellow tail ] advert

A decent quaff.

Vino Mike, a fellow chi-town wino, guinea pigged his way through the same tasting at Naha with the Midas, John Casella himself, and he scored the Reserve Shiraz best of show. So, fully prepared to be humiliated, I supped on the other [ yellow tail ] Reserve wines that weren’t a part of the blind tasting—A Cabernet, Merlot, Pinot Grigio, and Chardonnay—while anxiously waiting for Doug Frost, our satellite host, to get the show started. They weren’t a bad quaff at all.

We breezed through the first two wines in the flight, and almost instantaneously after slurping down number 3, about five of us exclaimed variations on the theme of, “That’s the $60 mother, right there.” Which it was; a 2006 bottling of d’Arenberg’s famous Dead Arm Shiraz. Number 4 didn’t fair so well as the recipient of a few faces, and a comment of, “It tastes watered down.” This was the Reserve Shiraz.

In all fairness, we weren’t spitting, so judgment was clouded. And the Dead Arm Shiraz was unbelievably delicious. It’s almost like LCD Soundsystem playing behind a Led Zepplin reunion, you just can’t win (maybe a bad analogy.)

I can also confidently report to you, interwebz, that my mouth is still wart-free three full days after consuming these [ yellow tail ] Reserve wines. I believe you can expect similar results.