L’Originale Black Stella Rosa Winery Vintage date unknown

I did not purchase this Italian bottle of wine. Rather, it the luck-of-the-draw from a cork grab during a fund raiser. My $ 20 donation opened a different kind of wine experience. The label merely read “Black”, and then semi-sweet. What is a “semisweet” red wine? The embossed bottle spoke Italian; the gold crown spoke Italian, and the unique, triangular cork made for quality. Curiously, a missing bit of information was the date it was bottled. As I scanned for on the label, there was only an “expiration date”: drink before 2020. The nose proved unusual in that it was woody, a sweet beech wood. (I haven’t encountered many wines with a woody nose, but beech wood (Linden tree) furniture and hand-crafted bowls run into money. At first pour, I nearly dropped the crystal goblet, because it bubbled. Bubbles and more bubbles frothed on top in the glass. There was sediment floating on top of bubbling bubbles. After a couple of minutes, the wine calmed down. I swirled for legs, none. Huh, how can a wine not have legs? I swirled again, but no legs formed. “This is crazy!”. Then I searched the able for alcohol content, which is a weak-kneed 5 %. Whoa, any good customized beer has 5% alcohol. Plus, one expects “suds” atop beer. Setting aside dismay, I took a first taste. First came orange followed by plum. On a second try, there was fresh blue grapes. The finish was lemon cough drop. The experience of drinking lemon cough drops was a first. I am not a big fan of sweet fruity wines. However, there a blackberry wines, strawberry wines, sweet apple wines (cider), and peach wines that outperform this “Black” semisweet bottle. For the wine drinker who wants a sweet red wine to pour on top your vanilla ice cream, here’s your winner. Here's a bit of data for readers using our T-L-C Dashboard, a beverage institute rated this semi-sweet black a gold medal quality winner @ 90 points…. Goes to show.