Another of my impulse buys from chwines.com during their 20%
off sale. This piqued my interest due to it being from Anderson Valley an AVA I
had yet to sample. I waited for a few months rather than opening it right away
and just recently opened it to pair with some grilled meats. This wine pours
dark purple in the glass with aromas of cherry, caramel, oak, strawberry jam
and just a hint of alcohol wafting up from the rim. I got a little crazy and
sampled a small glass without aerating this wine; big mistake. If you purchase
this wine make sure you let this wine breathe in a decanter or use an aerating
device as it is very tight with lots of tannins and a healthy dose of alcohol
flavors/textures. Surprising as it is, this wine didn’t pair very well with the
grilled sausages or hamburgers. It lost a lot of flavor with both of those
dishes and the only aspects that remained were those of heat, sour red fruit
and an alcohol bite. I decided to let this sit overnight in hopes it would
improve. The following night I revisited the bottle and found the alcohol bite
and heat diminished though the sour fruits persisted. The attack is very
streamlined even minimalistic consisting of blackberry, cherry and oak. The
tannins rapidly grab the palate bringing quite a dose of astringency and sour
fruit flavors. The mid-palate does not last very long, instead giving way to a
medium finish with more of the same flavors. Sour cherry, mixed with cola,
vanilla, oak and smoke grace a rather tame finish. This is a medium bodied wine
that leaves a disappointing aftertaste of wet leaves and cherries.
Overall I was not impressed with this particular wine. It
does get better if given the chance to breathe, but not nearly as big an
improvement as this wine needs. It has limited flavors and those that do show
up don’t really work here. It doesn’t taste bad just very young and limited in
spectrum. I think the bottle cost me 11 dollars which isn’t bad, I’ve had quite
a few wines that were terrible at that price point and this isn’t terrible. It
just doesn’t work for me. It might be the age of the wine or maybe my palate
but I can’t recommend this wine. As far as QPR goes, it earns a fair QPR but in
all honesty if you are ordering wines over the internet you expect better than
fair so I can’t recommend this wine find a CH Cabernet at your local Costco or Sam’s Club but stay
away from this one.
No comments:
Post a Comment