The Casual Wine Taster: Dreaming Tree Crush 2009

I’ve never been that in to DMB musically, but I am quickly becoming a fan of Dave Matthews’ wine. Unlike a lot of celebs who lend names to libations, Dave is really involved in the creation and production of Dreaming Tree along with vineyard veteran and wine world rock-star Steve Reeder, who has spent time working for Simi and Kendall Jackson. For more on Steve and Dave’s partnership, check out the Dreaming Tree website.

Yeah folks, it's that good.

For this week’s tasting I sampled Crush, Dreaming Tree’s red blend. I’m going to come right out here and tell you it was DE-LISH. Like Dave’s music, the wine is both smooth and jammy (just play along with my lame metaphor here) in the best way possible.

It starts out in the glass with tones of dark, vivid purple and red, and smells sweeter and lighter than most reds. This is not to say that it’s sugary or spread too thin—it’s just right (smmoooooth and jammy)!

Other reviewers have mentioned a smoky quality, but I’m not tasting that tonight (could be the lovely spiced chicken tikka masala I had for dinner). What I do get from this wine is a fairly straightforward berry taste; the raspberry jam punches you right in the roof of the mouth. The aftertaste stays true; it doesn’t linger too long after you sip and the flavor doesn’t change on you. This makes it great with a meal.

Steve and Dave say they want their wines to be fun and accessible. They got it spot on. I really enjoyed drinking Crush this evening as a complement to my Indian cuisine. You might try it with other foods too: barbeque, pizza or steak wouldn’t do you wrong. Hell, I’d probably enjoy this wine with an accompanying bowl of Raisin Bran.