Posts Tagged ‘black cherry’
Varietal: 100% Cabernet Sauvignon
Region: Mendoza – Argentina
Cost: $12 (SRP)
Winemaker’s Notes: Ruby color with purple hues of good intensity. Complex aromas of ripe fruits such as cherries, black cherries, and plums as well as vanilla, leather, tobacco, and spices such as black pepper and paprika. Full-bodied, sweet tannins, rich red wine with good balance and complexity and a long finish. Pairs well with grilled red meat and pastas.
My Review: If you’ll recall, a few weeks ago I was lucky enough to attend a lunch featuring several Santa Julia wines. During that lunch, the third course was a steak paired with a reserve cabernet sauvignon and a reserve malbec. While I enjoyed them, and the steak, the chimichurri topping on the steak had quite a bit of heat to it, and sorta fried my palate a little, making it hard to be sure I’d gotten a good sense of the wines. Fortunately, I was able to get a sample of the wines sent over so I could check them out again without my mouth being on fire (though that steak was still delicious).
This past weekend my wife and I decided to do a surf and turf dinner (gorgeous weather makes me want to grill), and since it’d had originally been paired with a steak, it seemed appropriate to that I should do so again. After cooking up a couple of NY Strips and a lobster tail, we sat down with our dinner and bottle of wine.
Varietal: 79% Cabernet Sauvignon; 17% Merlot; 4% Cabernet Franc
Region: California – Napa Valley – USA
Cost: $26 (SRP)
Winemaker’s Notes: Aromas of cedary oak, currants, black cherries, and ripe plums are rich and concentrated on the palate. The firm tannins underlying the wine’s core provide balance, leading to a long, lingering finish.
My Review: After a few weekends of craziness involving visiting family and the Virginia Wine Expo, my wife and I were happy for a weekend to just relax at home. So, after a Saturday relaxing, I fired up the grill and threw on a steak for myself and some seasoned corn on the cob for the both of us (my wife cooked herself up some bacon wrapped scallops). To pair with said dinner, I opened up a bottle of 2006 Waterstone Cabernet Sauvignon that I’d been eying for just such a meal. Read the rest of this entry »
Varietal: Blended Red (48% Merlot; 46% Cabernet Sauvignon; 6% Syrah)
Region: Washington State – Columbia Valley – USA
Cost: $16
Deep red in the glass with black cherry and licorice on the palate with a finish of dried herbs and mineral notes. Pairs well with a wide variety of dishes, including pizzas, pasta dishes, meat dishes, and cheese platters.
Recommendations: The first wine review of 2011. Feels good to get back into the swing of things after a busy holiday season. After a busy first day back at work from the New Years weekend, I was desperately in need of a drink when I got home, and while my wife cooked up an easy dinner of baked pasta with meatballs, I decided to open a bottle of wine.
My wife had bought the bottle of C.M.S. Red several weeks before from our local wine shop while out doing some Christmas shopping for me, and after a rough start to the week, it looked great. The wine was a deep red with hints of brown (I hate using that descriptor, but it’s the best I’ve got) and while I didn’t get much on the nose, there were hints of cherry. Read the rest of this entry »
Varietal: Blended Red Wine (70% Cabernet Sauvignon; 30% Cabernet Franc)
Region: Sicily
Cost: $43
Dark red color with aromas of wild berry, black cherry, leather, earth, and mineral. Palate carries over the flavors with the addition of spice and balsamic notes. Pairs well with meaty pasta, meats, and some cheeses.
Recommendations: This bottle was given as a gift to me, and I have to say it was pretty enjoyable. I had been holding off on opening it until I could pair it with something Italian in nature, and I finally got around to it last Friday. My wife decided to make these lasagna rolls that are stuffed with Italian sausage and ricotta cheese, then topped with red sauce and mozzarella and thrown in the oven to bake. Very tasty.
As for the wine itself, the dark color was appealing in the glass, and the aromas of berry and black cherry with a hint of earth were enticing. On the palate, I continued to get black cherry, and a bit of the spice did come through at the finish for me. Nice tannins on the finish made it a great pairing with the lasagna rolls. Read the rest of this entry »
Varietal: Cabernet Sauvignon (81.7% Cabernet Sauvignon; 7% Merlot; 6% Petite Sirah; 2.8% Malbec; 2.5% Petit Verdot)
Region: California – Sonoma – USA
Cost: $15
Garnet in color with aromas of black cherry, black olive, mocha and vanilla. Medium bodied showing flavors of mocha, raspberry, mint, plum, and tobacco. Pairs well with grilled meats.
Recommendations: So on Friday night my wife went out with some of her friends which meant I stopped at the store on my way home for a steak and bottle of wine. Sometimes a guy has to treat himself. My steak on the grill (after a comedy of errors involving having to run BACK out to the store to get my propane tank refilled), I opened up the wine to try a small sip. It really made me want my steak to cook faster.
While I didn’t really get the olive aromas that Sebastiani claimed (I’m not really a fan of olives, so maybe I just blocked them out), I did get the black cherry both on the nose and a bit on the palate. Flavors of mocha and tobacco were a great pairing for my steak once it came off the grill, and the tannins on the finish weren’t terribly big and bold, but they were enough to balance the grilled meat, and that’s really what I was looking for. Read the rest of this entry »
Varietal: Blended Red Wine (33% Syrah; 33% Barbera; 33%Petite Sirah)
Region: California – USA
Cost: $19.50
Deep purple in the glass with aromas and flavors of blueberry, black cherry, cedar, and mulberry with a tannic zip on the finish. Pairs well with Italian, Tex/Mex, spare ribs, burgers, steaks, pizza, meatloaf.
Recommendations: It was interesting for me to look over the tasting notes from this California wine and not see Cabernet Sauvignon thrown into the mix. Now before I get a bunch of hate mail/comments, I know that California makes more than just Cabernet, just feels like every time I get a blended wine from there, some Cab manages to find its way in, so it was nice to see one without.
When I poured the wine into the glass I almost feel in love right there. The deep purple color of the wine assured me that this would not be a light wine that would be overpowered by my meal. Not that I was worried a quick dinner of pizza would overpower most any red, but I was sure that it would hold up to even the thickest, juiciest, most seasoned steak I could come up with. I was right.
It took a while for the aromas to come out for me as the smell of alcohol was fairly prevalent at first, but after allowing the wine to open up I did start to get some of the black cherry on the nose. I can’t speak to the mulberry on the palate (as I don’t know what a mulberry tastes like to be honest), but the same cherry that I was getting on the nose came through in the mouth.
My favorite part of this wine was the nice tannic finish. I’ve always been a fan of a red that sort of kicks you at the end, and this wine did just that for me. That’s not to say that the tannins were over the top, but they were there and present and there’s no missing them. The wine was good with my pizza dinner, but I could have easily paired this with a steak or some pasta and it would have been just as good if not better.
Fortunately, for being a more bold wine, even after the food was gone the wine was still quite enjoyable. Granted I enjoy fuller wines even just to sip on without food. All in all it’s definitely a wine I would give another go to, especially this time of year as I’m spending a lot of time either grilling steaks and burgers or making quick dinners of pizza or pasta.
Special thanks to the International Wine of the Month Club for supplying the sample for this review.
For those looking for the wine you can order it directly from Home Grown Farms.
