Clos du Val 2006 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, $24.99

OK. If you know anything at all about the wines I drink, you would know that cabernet from Napa Valley takes the cake. It pushes all the right buttons for me. Now, this one here is not exactly pure cabernet. It's 85% cabernet sauvignon, 6% cabernet franc, 5% merlot & 4% petit verdot. Ahhh, the PV. I'm in love just after reading the label.

This wine is so dark in the glass it's almost black. There's a purpley-red tinge around the perimeter, but all in all, it's dark. You couldn't see through this if you tried. That's the PV for you. God, I love PV.

It takes a while for the legs to form on the side of the glass, but when they do, they're slow and long. They creep down to the wine, never breaking up, never turning into a sheet. And there are a lot of them. This is no cheesy, two-legs-and-we're-done kind of wine. This is one heavy bad boy. On the nose, I smell two things: the alcohol content (13.5%) and the petit verdot. Man, that is one distinctive grape, and you either love it or hate it. You know I love it.

The back of the bottle proclaims that there are "flavors of dark fruit" on the palate. I wonder, what exactly constitutes dark fruit? Granted, I'm not tasting happy strawberries or raspberries on the palate - really, all I taste is petit verdot & these amazing tannins that are powerful but mellow at the same time. Does that make sense at all? Those tannins are there & they're totally not pushovers, but at the same time, it's almost like they're saying, "Yeah, we're here, and we used to be bitter, but we've mellowed out." Yummy. This is exactly the kind of wine I could drink my entire life & not get tired of.

The aftertaste is long on this wine. It's reminiscent of fake sweeteners, but not in the flavor sense. You know when you have artificial sweeteners & they leave a distinctive tang/burn down the back of your throat? This wine does the same thing. The aftertaste leaves this mellow chemical burn down the back of my throat that's at once comforting and perplexing. Again, that's the PV talking. It's so funny that just a small amount of PV can radically change the structure of an entire bottle of wine.

Love. I am in love, love, love with this wine. It's not the cheapest wine out there, but it's by far not the most expensive, either. I think, if I had to pick only one wine to drink for the rest of my life, this would be it. This is my wine. This wine defines everything about me & what I'm looking for in a wine...hell, even in my life. I dare you to try it once & see if you don't agree. www.closduval.com.

Cheers!

Kate