I am going to go out on a limb here and say that starting in August and into the fall is the best time of the year for grilling. Sure, August is hot, but as we approach Labor Day and the weather starts to cool, there’s no better place to be than outside with friends, cooking an incredible meal on the grill.
When you’re hanging out with friends and grilling up tons of different meats, from burgers and hotdogs to chicken and pork chops, you need a wine that is easy drinking yet still interesting. You also want something that is likely to please everyone – at least everyone that likes red wine. In addition, since you probably already have your hands tied with all the cooking, fiddling with a corkscrew every time a bottle gets finished probably isn’t ideal either, meaning only a screwcap will do. That was our goal when we went out searching for a wine to cover all of these requirements, and SHEBANG from Bedrock Wine Co. delivers.
What initially attracted us to the bottle was the label, which we felt was unique, fun and perfect for setting the mood at a get-together. We were pleasantly surprised that the wine inside delivered as well. The wine is a blend of mainly Zinfandel and is non-vintage, meaning there are several different vintages of wine that are combined to create what’s inside the bottle (not all of the wine was made from grapes grown in 2013, some could be from 2011 and others from 2009, etc.). It’s the creation of Morgan Twain-Peterson, a man with quite the wine pedigree in California wine country, and the son of Ravenswood founder Joel Peterson. Given this pedigree, Morgan has been able to source excellent fruit in order to make SHEBANG.
If you are a fan of ripe, juicy California reds, you have just found your new go-to bottle. As soon as the wine hit the glass an intense aroma of blackberries and chocolate emerged, one of our tasters even commented that the wine smelled especially grapey. Yes, it was that fruit forward.
There are barely any tannins in this wine at all, so if having a dry mouth after taking a sip of red is your thing, you may not be so into SHEBANG. But if you enjoy juicy flavors of chocolate and berries with a nice amount of acidity, this wine is for you.
Incredibly quaffable, SHEBANG is the perfect wine for meaty cheeseburgers, charred hotdogs and beer can chicken. Though because it’s so easy to drink, you may simply want to drink it all on its own.
