Without further ado…
If You Like Murphy Goode Homefront, You May Also Like…
…these California red blends. Welcome to our first ever, If You Like wine blog. The idea is founded from a joint effort between First Pour Wine and 10K Bottles. For our inaugural edition, 10K Bottles founder Heather Lipp suggested Murphy Goode Homefront, a bottle that millennials are drinking nightly. With that foundation, Heather threw the ball over the fence to me to pick out the wines Murphy Goode Homefront would be going up against.
The Wines:
The Headliner:
The Challengers:
- The Seven Deadly Zins 2012
- Menage à Trois Folie À Deux 2014
- Playtime Red Blend 2013
- Uncensored Red Blend 2012
- Barefoot Rich Red Blend
The Methodology
In order to choose, I looked at Murphy Goode Homefront, and picked out some key characteristics that were used to pick the other wines.
- The Blend – Murphy Goode Homefront is mostly Zinfandel and Merlot, more middle of the road grapes with softer tannin structures.
- The Location – Since Murphy Goode Homefront is from California, we’ll focus in on California. Slipping a wine in from France would be like putting a Guinness into a light beer tasting.
- Price – All challenger wines should cost less than the Headliner ($16.99 here in Ohio).
With these criteria in mind, I selected the challengers, and set up a blind tastings for myself and 6 wine curious (and lucky) friends.
The Tasting
Each bottle was placed in a brown paper bag, and lettered. Participants received 6 glasses in order of the letters, and received a note card, and link to a Survey Monkey quiz. After they tasted all their samples, they ranked them, and we had a rather interesting discussion. Here’s what wines are in which bag:
- Wine A – Murphy Goode Homefront 2012
- Wine B – The Seven Deadly Zins 2012
- Wine C – Menage à Trois Folie À Deux 2014
- Wine D – Playtime Red Blend 2013
- Wine E – Uncensored Red Blend 2012
- Wine F – Barefoot Rich Red Blend
Key Takeaways
So what did the data tell us? Our participants really hated bottle B.
So what didn’t folks like about Murphy Goode? Well, the principal complaint was around the texture, with a few individuals describing it as oily, with less aromas than the other wines. If more aroma was better, poor Seven Deadly Zins would have had a better showing. Unfortunately, it got panned almost unanimously for the higher smoke quotient than the others.
The winner? By a fairly good margin Menage à Trois Folie À Deux took the prize, with many tasters noting its more neutral fruity character, hints of baked goods, and mellow finish and texture. While both Menage à Trois Folie À Deux & Playtime Red Blend got the most top rankings, Menage à Trois was far less polarizing, with no rank lower than 4.
Some other fun facts:
- The joker bottle, Barefoot Rich Red Blend got one favorite, and ended up with a higher score than Murphy Goode Homefront.
- One participant admitted following the tasting to having bought Seven Deadly Zins before and having really liked it, but rated it in the bottom half of this group.
Conclusion: If You Like Murphy Goode Homefront… You may also like Menage à Trois Folie À Deux
If you happen to like Murphy Goode Homefront, there’s nothing wrong with that. The panel of individuals highly recommended that you give Menage à Trois Folie À Deux and Uncensored Red Blends a try. Which, it should be noted are both cheaper than Murphy Goode Homefront!
Had any of these wines? Tell us what you think in the comments!
When I first read the headline and then looked at your featured image, I was horrified by the other wines you were tasting. And then I read your methodology and loved what you are doing. Interesting results for sure.
Rick
Strong Coffee to Red Wine