Aware of my new wine drinking endeavor and being the kind fella that he is, my beer-drinking buddy brought out a Yellow Tail Shiraz to drink. The sweetness was intense. Would you say that Yellow Tail Shiraz is an extreme example of the “fruit bomb?”

The last YT I tasted was about 5 years ago and that, was nothing like a fruit bomb. It had a petro/burnt rubber thing going on along with a sense of artificiality about it. I can still clearly remember the taste in my head. It was not a pleasant one.

It's probably more like an RS bomb. (Residual Sugar)

A fruit bomb is kind of like eating that atomic warhead sour candy.

Yellow tail has 8 g/l of residual sugar, which explains the sweetness. Most reds come in at around 2g/l.

Markus...always learning something new. Good info, thanks.

By the way, is the 2g/l of residual sugar required to be listed on the bottle or are we to make that assumption on most reds?

It's not listed, only tasted!

I was just googling around for fruit bombs and came across this forum post.

I really don't think the yellow tail shiraz is anything like a fruit bomb! I mean... I can see why you mention it, but to me they are really different. Last year I was at the grand national in England and they had fruit bombs in one of the booths!!

lol Peer Gynt... yes I agree, fruit bombs are a bit like sour candy!

Sancho - the sweetness was intense but did you like the wine?

I agree with the other posters in that the wine is more about sweetness than fruit, but it's created for the US palate, or whatever they think constitutes the US palate, and they're selling the hell out of that wine.

Fruit bomb is frequently associated with other wines from Australia tho - especially those from the Barossa Valley, as well as lots of zinfandels from California, among other wines. Some wineries for example, get extremely ripe fruit in the Barossa. To avoid having a rather flat wine, they acidify it. If done well, you can't really tell but if done less well, you get the combination of fruit intensity with an acidic bite, much like those candies mentioned.

Some people love fruit bombs, others don't, others are willing to enjoy many different types of wines.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by GregT:
Sancho - the sweetness was intense but did you like the wine?

.[/QUOTE

This particular sweetness...No. I've had a Zinfandel though, recently, that was sweet but there were some nuances in it (that I find challenging to describe) that I truly enjoyed. I need a wine class man. A wine class where I can taste side by side with others and an instructor to guide me through some of the tasting experience.

Nah - you're just fine. You're paying attention and that's the key. If you get out to NYC give a holler.

Yellowtail lists nutrition facts on their website, from which you can calculate the approximate residual sugar - 8 grams is about right.

I've never had the Yellow Tail Shiraz, but I've had the Reserve, and it wasn't bad - I'd guess aorund 1g residual sugar (I start to taste RS between 1 and 1.5).

Sometimes RS is not the whole story. Mollydooker has around 3g/L, but their wines taste incredibly sweet to me because of the high glycerine content.

Remember everyone's palate is different - lots of my friends didn't think the '06 Mollydooker Boxer was sweet at all.