Channing Daughters 2009 Rosato di Cabernet Sauvignon - Mudd Vineyard, $18.00

OK. We all know how I feel about pink wine. (Blech.) But we also all know how I feel about cabernet sauvignon. (Love!) So this wine, a gift to me from my girl Woman, is a study & a challenge to me all at once. Bring it on!

In the glass, this wine is pale, pale, pale! It's the color of white-peach flesh, or maybe the blush in the cheeks of a girl in a Renaissance painting. Pretty! It is extremely heavy in body with legs forming immediately (and by the truckload). On the nose, I get a whiff of salt air & sea breeze (not the alcoholic drink, thank you very much). Not sure where that salt came from, but I am sure enjoying it.

Holy cow! This wine has just shot across my palate & shocked me in a way that I cannot believe. At first sip, right over my lips and teeth, all I taste is alcohol. Surprising, especially when you take into account the low 12.5% alcohol content. Then I get a hint of sweet, but sweet with a force behind it - I guess the best way to describe it is like sweet that's been knocked into my mouth off a baseball bat. And when I say sweet, I mean sweetness like a grape-flavored Jolly Rancher candy. And then, just when I think this wine is going to be all sweetness, it turns tart at the tail end, making me pucker up and think of something like a sour grape martini. The sour finish lingers, reminiscent of grape-flavored NERDS candy. An alcoholic candy store in my mouth.

Again, this is the reason why I love it when people bring me wine as a gift. This is not a wine I normally would have picked out by myself - in fact, the only pink wine I have EVER sought out was Francis Ford Coppola's Sofia Rose (and even then, it was really more for the bottle) - but I love this. I love cab, even when it's pink. Hoo-Rah! http://www.channingdaughters.com/index.php

Cheers!

Kate

Barbed Wire Meritage 2009, $11.99

OK, I just have to get this out of my system...I love Florida! Not only is it sunshiney & happy, but the local Target carries some halfway-decent wines (sometimes ones I've never seen before) at some pretty good prices. I flew into MCO last night, hit up Target to pick up my favorite snackey treats (hummus & raw veggies), and of course to find a bottle of wine. This one was the winner. And it was on sale, too! Kudos to you, state of FL, for being my second home & for selling wine all over the place!

This meritage is a blend of cabernet & merlot with a 13% alcohol content. The back of the bottle brags that it is a "bold, classic Bordeaux-style blend." Well, I'm game. And the all-black bottle taunted me.

In the glass, this wine is super-dark & almost opaque, with long, instantly-forming legs that shoot straight down the glass like they're racing to the finish line. On the nose, it truly smells like a classic Bordeaux-style wine, with damp earth & rusty nail aromas.

On the palate, this wine is extremely interesting. It's almost like a warm, rare steak on the mid-palate, but with a long, disappointingly bitter finish. The tannins are young & firm, almost to the point where this wine feels like it could be undrinkable. That being said, the mouthfeel is incredibly smooth, the wine feels very lush on the palate, and there is only a tiny alcohol tingle to remind you that there's actually alcohol in here.

I'd have to say, to fully enjoy this wine, a half-hour of decanting should do the trick. But c'mon! This wine is from Napa. When was the last time you had a twelve-dollar red from Napa? For the flavor-to-price ratio, the only thing better is Layer Cake cab.

This wine is from Sutter Home, made especially for Target. It's on sale now if you're interested. Go! Go!

Cheers!
Kate

Souverain Chardonnay 2009, $17.00

OK. I had a killer party on Friday, and one of my co-workers who reads this blog (she's ALSO the one who introduced me to that package store next to Ginza - you know who you are!) brought me this lovely bottle as a gift. So I figured I might as well open it up & drink it. After all, it is a chardonnay, it is from Sonoma & Napa, and it does have an alcohol content of 13.9%. Killer!

The back of the bottle has this to say about this wine: "Superb fruit, eight months of oak aging, and lees-stirring have created a rich wine with intense notes of pear and nectarine." Excellent. I'm salivating already.

This is a light yellow-colored wine, looking almost like a sauvignon blanc, but with a much heavier body - the chubby little legs spring up immediately and meander down the side of the glass. On the nose, this wine is very reminiscent of the Trinitas chard with its heavy, oakey, buttery aroma.

On the palate, this wine is really incredible. On the mid-palate, I get a honey-covered fruit flavor, but not a pear or nectarine but almost like a clementine. You know those teeny little easy-to-peel, often seedless oranges? Yeah, those. After the blink-and-you-miss-it deluge of honeyed clementine, the finish is long & buttery, with hints of almond & bakery bread.

The mouthfeel (...) is also incredible, thin but luscious, with the tiniest hint of acidity to it. I cannot believe how good this chardonnay is. This is why I tell people to give me wine as gifts - not because I'm a wino (which I sort of am), but because I LOVE sharing the experience of wine with people. I don't drink wine to get drunk; I drink it to expand my palate & share my tasting notes with others. That being said, I also love being introduced to new wines, especially wines that I wouldn't necessarily pick out by myself, that totally blow me away. Just like this one. I'll have to ask my co-worker where she bought this so I can replenish my wine fridge. http://www.souverain.com/index.cfm?method=homepage.showpage

Cheers!

Kate