United States of Wine

St. James Winery – Cherry Sweet Wine

Purchased: Spec’s Wine

Price: $9.67

I’ll start with saying that I know there are far better wines in Missouri, but this is what I was able to get my hands on at Spec’s Wine in the northeast area of the Dallas-Fort Worth area. I recently learned a little about Missouri’s wine-growing history and I look forward to visiting the state later this year and trying one of their Norton wines.

But for now, we went with a Cherry Sweet Wine from St. James Winery, with only 10% alcohol, lower than other wines. I’ve had a cherry wine from Michigan in the past, and the differences between the two wines was astounding. I remember the Michigan wine as far more tart. But this Missouri cherry wine was sweet, very sweet. And honestly, kind of yummy.

Because of its sweetness, it’s hard to imagine this being the go-to wine after a long day or for a date. But if you’re looking for something you can enjoy as a dessert sipping wine. St. James Winery also uses their fruit wines in cocktails, which I’d be interested in looking more into.

So I’m not a fan of sweet wines. As I’ve said before on this blog, I think sweet wines are for people who don’t like real wine. But this is offered as an obvious sweet wine. St. James makes doesn’t try to hide it, or pretend that it’s a real grape at the level of some of their varieties available in Missouri. And I respect that, especially that as a cherry sweet wine, it’s good.

A glass of this wine has nearly no scent. But if you smell hard enough, you can pick up the slight scent of regular cherry juice. While extremely red in the bottle, it pours out as a rust red.

The sweetness hits your tongue immediately, with a slight feel of carbonation. What I found pleasing was that the sweetness didn’t stay on your tongue. I’ve previously had fruit wines that felt like they covered your tongue, like licking a lollipop on a hot day, needing a sip of water for a release. This cherry wine was almost quite refreshing, like sipping on a nice glass of juice.

Swirling it around my mouth to let air in(I know, who does that to a fruit wine? Me.), I was able to taste alcohol as the cherry flavor separated from it.

Since St. James Winery offers this wine as a good ingredient to cocktails, I was really looking forward to my favorite cola-based cocktail: a kalimotxo. I poured 4 ounces of Coke Zero over 4 ounces of this cherry wine. Let me tell you, it was the best cherry coke I’ve ever had!

The Coke Zero-Cherry Wine mix tasted like I had put an extra shot of grenadine into a regular glass of cherry cola, without the bitter carbonation that can be found in a can of regular Cherry Coke Zero. In this form, it was delicious and refreshing, and I would totally recommend it like this.

Score: 8.0/10