Apothic Dark for Neophytes Only

If you’ve followed Moo on Twitter over the past few years, you’ll know that I’m a lover of champagne, Riesling and most recently, scotch. You’ll also know that I’ve been taking as many wine courses as possible to increase my knowledge of wine and spirits. You may or may not have noticed that I very rarely drink red wine, other than Lambrusco. This is mostly a result of preference and exposure. I prefer drinking white wines and therefore have not been exposed to as much red wine. Also, prior to learning about the flavour profiles of grapes from my wine courses, I would randomly choose red wines to choose and somehow managed to always choose very oaky tasting wines, which I didn’t find particularly enjoyable, which I suspect turned me off of red wines.

Since taking wine courses, I’ve been trying to expose myself to as many different types of wines as possible, as well as wines from as many regions as possible. One of the things you learn in these courses is that the climate that the grapes are grown in has an influence on their flavour profile, which means a cabernet sauvignon from France is different than one from Australia. The only way to decide what you like or don’t like is to just try things for yourself. So when offered a free bottle of Apothic Dark 2014, it was an offer I couldn’t turn down!


Apothic Wines is a winery out of California, offering three wine blends: Apothic White, Apothic Red and Apothic Dark. Although they don’t specify what grapes are blended into Apothic Dark, they indicate on the website that this particular blend should have notes of blueberry, blackberry, coffee and dark chocolate.

Everyone will of course taste something different as everyone has a different frame of reference. I personally tasted cherries as opposed to blueberries and blackberries with a hint of dark chocolate, and found it really easy to drink. There wasn’t a lot going on in this wine, so it’s not going to be very interesting for people who enjoy drinking red wine on a regular basis, but for someone who isn’t a fan of red wines and is just starting to try to drink it, it’s a good entry level wine. The price tag of $13.99 at Liquor Depot (Edmonton, AB) makes it an inexpensive bottle to purchase and try for people like Moo, who are hesitant to spend their hard earned cow coins on a bottle of wine they may or may not enjoy.

So the verdict is, if you’re a red wine newbie, give Apothic Dark 2014 a whirl. It’s an easily enjoyable red wine blend to get you into trying red wines at a reasonably low price point that if you don’t like it, you won’t feel like you’ve wasted a ton of money. However, for those who already understand and enjoy red wine, it’s unlikely that it’ll be up your alley.

(Note: There was no financial compensation from Apothic Wines or their PR Agency for this blog post, although they provided a bottle of wine for me to try. Any review provided by me will completely reflect my thoughts and opinions – good or bad, and will not be swayed by having free products provided.)