Framboise - Raspberry Wine

On the way back from a road to Hana bus tour last week, our last stop was at Maui's only winery which is located in Ulupalakua.  I had been looking forward to this stop which included a free wine tasting.  I've had several of their wines before since they're sold at our local wine shop in L.A.; however, there was one wine I particularly wanted to try, their raspberry wine.  On this particular day, that wasn't one of the bottles available for tasting.

My husband and I tend to like sweet dessert wine, and raspberry sounded particularly delicious.  The bottles at the winery were $40, so we thought we'd see if we could find it elsewhere for less.  I know you'd think that the bottles at the winery should be cheaper than at the grocery store, but that's not always the case.  We actually pay less for some of the bottles in L.A. than the price at the winery.

The next day, we looked at the ABC store, but they didn't have the raspberry wine.  Then we went to Times supermarket and found it there.  It was the same price as at the winery, but we decided we wanted to try it regardless.

A couple nights ago we popped the cork expecting great things.  It smelled good.  The first sip tasted exactly like raspberry jam.  However, the second, third, and forth sips also tasted like raspberry jam.  That's a pretty strong taste.  I felt like I needed to dip a piece of toast in the wine or something.  The alcohol is also 20% by volume which is pretty strong for a bottle of wine.  We tried watering it down thinking that maybe the alcohol was just too strong for us, but we still didn't like the taste.  We ended up pouring most of the bottle down the drain.

In short, unless you can get a free taste at the winery and decide you LOVE this wine, save your money.  Just buy some raspberry jam. 

Happy drinking!