Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory…Dark red swirled with purplish-black notes
Taste a Rainbow of…Balanced fruit and berry characteristics (blackberry, black currant and plum) mixed with pepper and vanilla; nicely rounded tannins dance with subdued alcohol heat and astringency; finishes big, bold and pleasant with more blackberry/currant flavors, black pepper, oak, vanilla, licorice and wet soil.
Survey Says…This is a surprisingly pleasant wine that’s pretty darn close to my price limit ($17.99 at Costco). This bottle is my first foray into Stag’s Leap territory of any varietal. After I’d purchased this bottle I read a few reviews of the previous vintage of this wine and found ¾ of them rated this wine poorly. Perhaps they have more experience with Stag’s Leap wines in general because I don’t have any experience with them but I found this wine to be quite a pleasant drinking experience. It’s smooth and balanced with a nose that makes me want to sit and sniff it for hours on end. It didn’t need a lot of time to decant (though I gave it about an hour after sipping a very small glass straight after opening). It opened up a little after an hour and smoothed out just a hair more than it had been upon the initial pour. It’s safe to say you can enjoy this right after popping the cork. The attack is full of ripe blackberry, currant, black plum, vanilla creaminess and peppery tingles. The mid-palate shows off near perfect tannins, rather subdued heat and acidity from the alcohol and mild astringency that suits this wine just fine. The finish is big and bold, the berry/fruit flavors come back strong to be joined with black pepper, oak, vanilla, wet soil/forest floor, and lastly licorice that runs deep in this wine but comes on strong in the finish and aftertaste. This is a full-bodied wine with a long finish and a pleasant licorice-y aftertaste. Based on what I’m used to drinking this is way up there as far as quality goes; it’s so smooth and balanced it’s hard to believe I was drinking a 2008 vintage it seemed older and more aged. It is a little pricy as far as I’m concerned, but to my knowledge this is the least expensive Stag’s Leap AVA Cabernet Sauvignon you can purchase right now. If there is one at a lower price point I can’t find it in Arizona. That being said I would really only drink this on special occasions or if I had wine snooty friends over because I think this would pass their tests. I plan to cellar a bottle of this for a later date just to see how well it ages, but it’s not going to be an everyday or even every month bottle for me. Despite not being an everyday bottle it still gets gets a good Quality-to-Price Ratio and a passing grade. Let me know what your palate says about this wine.
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