2004 Heartland Cabernet Sauvignon

Winery Page (2004 not listed here) 

After the success of the Shiraz, I was keen to try out the Cab Sav offering from the same folks.

I have to admit, I was expecting something a bit ‘bigger’. The big new world Cabs tend to have a lot of punch to them, and this one is far more subtle than that. Some people like subtle, and I can appreciate it in some forms, but the danger with being too subtle is that it is not memorable.

I will say that there were no astringent flavors to this wine, and it did not kick me in the head the next day. So it basically had no negatives, but no strong positives either. A wine like this is probably good for table wine at a dinner party, because it would not offend anybody and would go well with good food.

Maybe another year sitting in the fridge will help it out.

2002 Robert Mondavi Napa Cabernet

Winery Page (no description of 2002 though)

I went to Daniel’s in Bellevue with my wife last friday, and I decided on the Mondavi Cab because it hit a good intersection on the value curve.

This is a very pleasant wine with that typical Cab taste (a little bit of a vanilla edge to it) and it matched up with the steak wonderfully. It was a great night out, and the Cab helped a lot with that.

Now I want to try out the reserve…

2005 Heartland Stickleback Red

Winery Page

This is going for about 10 bucks in a variety of locations now, so I got half a case to keep around for the time when I need a drink and don’t want to feel guilty about what I am drinking. This is an interesting mix of Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz and Grenache by Ben Glaetzer. These are all varieties that I like and a winemaker that I respect, so I figured that this was a good bet.

I must say that I was not blown away by this stuff but not terribly offended either. Perhaps this is a result of expectations set too high – it is in the price point where you should not expect much. It is well made enough (no headaches for me) and it went well with the food. Perhaps the blend is something that I need to get used to.

Certainly if you only want to spend 10 bucks on wine to take to a party or something you can do *far* worse than this. Plenty of wine at this price point tastes astringent or will have you feeling like a dissappointed horse kicked you in the head. My apologies if this sounds like faint praise, but faint praise is still praise.

2004 L’Ecole No 41 Cabernet Sauvignon

Winery Page

I decided on a half bottle of this when I had dinner at 26 Brix. After tasting Walla Walla wines all day I would like to have ordered something Australian as a treat with my meal, but there was not a single Australian bottle of wine on the menu. One of the waiting staff tells me that this is due to the difficulty of getting Australian wine out in Walla Walla. Still, I saw a bottle of Two Hands in a store a few blocks from 26 brix, and I would have ordered that right away if it was on the menu.

I was in the mood for a nice Shiraz, but my second favorite is Cab, and they had some on the menu. I tried to balance my need for something nice, with my need to not spend money and my need to not kill a full bottle by myself. The L’Ecole was the best intersection of these needs.

This was definitely a wine that needed to be eaten with food. I think that it was too tannic for my tastes – it tasted young to me and when the meal was finished it was hard for me to have the remainder of my glass. The flavor was OK, but there was not enough sugar on the palate for me. I know that one commenter has already given me flak about my bias for “jammy wines”, but wine is a matter of taste. From what I have heard this wine is a great example of a particular style, just not a style that I am into.

2003 Justin Isosceles

Winery Page

After killing the Grant Burge GSM we decided to open another bottle. Jeff did not have much of the GSM and was on a drinking mission, and I was just drunk enough to believe that more wine was a great idea (my hangover the next day would, however, prove otherwise). Jeff burrowed around his collection a bit, and consultation with his Justin aging chart told him that the Isosceles was ready to go.

I was happy that he did decide this – the Isosceles was a great cab. It had a hint of vanilla about it, and it had way more prescence in the glass than the GSM did. The flavour reminded me of the Penfolds Bin 707 a little bit (it has that same vanilla Cabernet feel to it), just slightly more subdued. There was also more smoothness and sugar in the 707, but considering the price points this is not surprising.

Looking around the tubes this is not exactly a cheap cab at around $50-$60 a bottle, but the quality was enough that I would definitely consider Justin the next time I want to try something Californian.

1999 Penfolds Bin 707 Cabernet Sauvignon

Winery Page

Tonight I went to Tosoni’s – an awesome restaurant in Bellevue that I believe to be the best in the Puget Sound. It turns out that they had a bottle of Bin 707 there, and I could not resist grabbing a bottle to have with dinner. Normally I would not be so bold, but my beautiful wife egged me on and I went for it. Am I ever glad that I did.

This is the big daddy of the Penfolds Cabernet range, and it definitely shows when you crack it and taste it. It was smooth and sweet when you tasted it, strong in the good way and not in the bad way. It had a great mineral texture that my favorite wines always have (like Magill Estate, RWT, Grange, GSM and Euroa Creeks). The wine went fantastically with the surf and turf that I was eating, and it was pleasant to continue with after dinner.

I actually have some of this stuff stashed away, and I am now very glad to have done so. I have been slack in procurring more and I need to get onto that soon. So much wine to hoard, and so little money.

If you want something bold and Australian to drink, but want to stray away from Shiraz for the night, I definitely recommend trying this (if you can find it – this stuff is like hen’s teeth).

2004 Hay Shed Hill Cabernet Shiraz Merlot

Winery Page

I got this wine at a price that was a steal from a source that I trusted. On one hand there was the trepidation of having cheap wine (which is quite often disappointing if you have ever had good wine) and on the other hand there was the excitement of having something guilt free to drink in the house (I hate feeling like I am forced to open stuff early).

To my pleasant surprise this stuff was great. No ugly sour aftertaste, no strange bitter flavors and no overwhelming alcohol, which are the typical traits of really cheap wine that I don’t like. No hangover either (some wine is great tasting but you feel like a mule kicked you in the head when you wake up). What the wine did have is a pleasant, subtle flavor that was not marred by the prescence of Merlot (which is quite often something I don’t like to drink. Bad luck with Merlot, me).

Considering the pleasant flavor, lack of typical cheap wine bad attributes and lack of hangover this is something that I highly recommend you try, especially if you are a bit of a tightwad or delight in having good stuff for cheap. Just don’t expect that all wine at this price will taste this good.

Rosemount Mountain Blue redux

I finally had a chance tonight to try this wine with a big beefy steak, and I am happy that I did. As I suspected, the beef flavour and the wine really meshed well together and made the wine more enjoyable to drink.

Another factor that might have helped is that I did let it air a lot longer before drinking it this time (I made a phone call for a while while I was waiting for the meat to cook). Despite the fact that the bottle sat in the fridge for a few days it still did very well.

 So my recommendation for this wine is raised from a wavy hand to a strong thumbs up. For the price I think that it is a great bottle to have with beef and a pretty good bottle by itself later.

2001 Rosemount Estate Flagship Mountain Blue Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon

Winery page 

Well, the name is a mouthful. I saw this stuff on special at Whole Foods today and I thought that it would be a good addition to the “Drink Now” pile of wine at the house (ask most wine collectors what to drink some days and they will um and ah and claim that they have nothing to drink, despite the apparent abundance of vino sitting around the house. My effort to combat this problem is to make sure that I have a good pile of stuff around that can be sacrificed to my whims of wanting a drink without feeling guilty of shortening the maturation of one of my precious).

This appears to be somewhat of a premium offering from Rosemount. Their GSM has made me a believer in their abilities, and I had never tasted something from Mudgee before, so deciding to give this a try was not hard. It is a shiraz / cabernet blend (85% shiraz) and these are normally very drinkable.

My impression from my first tasting is that despite being a 2001, it might actually do better with some more cellaring. It has a hint of the earthy flavour that I love in shiraz wines but it also has a touch of that bright, sharp taste that I associate with wines that are too young. I am eating it with potato chips rather than a steak though, and the pairing could very well be part of the problem. Despite the relatively low alcohol it feels quite powerful, which is not neccessarily a bad thing.

I think that I will try this next with a big steak or piece of pork by the side to see how it pairs with some food. Based on the nose and the flavour that I taste it could very well improve the enjoyment of this wine.