Friday, September 30, 2011

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

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