Wines of the Week, Feb 21-23, 2013

Another week goes by, and the time flies.  The wines we’ll review this week were OK, not great, but just OK.  Here’s the wine:

Wine:       2010 Concannon Cabernet Sauvignon          Winery Location:   California

Tasted By:   Neil & Cheri                                              Date:     Feb 21-23, 2013

Tasting Notes:       Deep purple in color, this has a big nose of black cherry and rasberry, but there’s also something a little astringent there.  There are some good flavors as well, with black fruit and vanilla.  Seems like some oak as well.  Medium in body it’s not the smoothest wine, so we let it sit for a spell.  After an hour it was better, it had smoothed out and had a nice finish with some good length.  It’s a good wine, but it needs to breath a bit before serving.

Price Point –    $8.50 locally

Would We Buy It? –    Maybe, but there is a lot of competition in this price range and we’ve opened a bunch of wines that were really good under $10.  This won’t be at the top of the value list, but it is not a mistake either.  We’re ambivalent.

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Wine:   2008 Fattoria dei Barbi Rosso di Montalcino     Winery Location:   Tuscany

Tasted By:       Neil and Cheryl               Date:     Feb 23, 2013

Tasting Notes:    Ruby red in the glass,  this has an expressive nose of red and black fruit, with a little smokiness as well.  The palate offers vibrant fruit flavors and good acidity, maybe a touch too much.  We usually love Rosso di Montalcinos and find them one of the easiest wines to drink.  This is not a favorite.  A little too much acid knocked it down just a peg.  We didn’t give it a huge amount of time, but after a few hours it really didn’t improve.  I was a bit disappointed.

Price Point –    $15 on sale locally.

Would We Buy It? –    Probably not.  A good Rosso these days for $15 is a steal, but this one didn’t really hit the mark.  I can think of a lot of other wines in the price range I would prefer.

Not the most successful couple of bottles, but you can’t hit a home run every time.  They weren’t bad, just not in the group with the best in their price ranges.

A votre sante!

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