We were supposed to drink this at a tasting yet ran out of time. I brought it home and opened it last week to put pen to paper. Plums and graphite on the nose made for an interesting start.  Black fruits with steely tannins were overshadowed by heat from the 14.6% alcohol. I am hoping this subsides as this wine will be good after 2 more years of cellaring.  Blackberry and plums with some cherry cola start you off.  Pencil lead and more dark fruits emerge on the mid palate and the gentle tannins finish it off. 88 points with the potential for 89 if the alcohol can meld better with some aging.  For $20 you would be hard pressed to get Stags Leap Cab of any quality, making this potentially a 4 star wine.  3 for now though.  Salut….

Sundays in the fall are for football and Roast Beef.  Being half British means I need a weekly dose of Yorkshire pudding, gravy and tender beef served up with delicious wine.  This week was a first for me.  I have never cooked a Strip Roast.  It was magnificent, cooked perfectly and juicy to the last morsel.  The rub was key, garlic, olive oil, sage, thyme, salt and pepper.  I could go on, but this is more about the vino.

This Napa Cabernet was quite simply stunning.  Nearly black in the glass I knew I was headed to an extracted, rich, complex world….
Plums and eucalyptus greeted me on the nose and my first impressions were spot on.  Napa all the way, with gobs of plum, blueberry, black berry and mint on the initial attack. A very slight touch of wood adds complexity to the whole package.  Extremely fine grained tannins just coat the mouth, perfectly. Balanced acidity make for a great mouthfeel that leads to a long finish of cola and blue fruits laced with espresso.  I would easily award this wine 93 points, drinking between 2014-2020.  You know what to pair it with, just fork over the $65 and get going.  This is the fourth Merryvale I have tasted and I am really becoming a fan of their wine.  I think this wine merits 5 stars. I wish I had more so I could watch the evolution, I bet it’s gonna sing in a few years. Salut….

Strip Roast with Yorkshire Pudding and mushroom gravy

I bought a magnum of this wine a while back and had it sitting on my ‘everyday drinker’ shelf for the past two months, waiting to pop it at a moments notice.  This past week I had that opportunity.  Black cherries and eucalyptus on the nose were telltale signs of this wine’s Napa roots.  Kir, plum and blueberry initially hit my palate along with some beautiful ingrained tannins.  Blueberry jam on a creamy finish with nice acidity lead to a great mouthfeel and long ending.  This is Napa Cab at it’s finest, showing off fresh fruit yet with great structure and complexity.  This particular bottle was relatively young, especially since it was in Magnum.  I would venture a 2014-2024 drinking window in large format.  92 points and 4 stars from me for this $55 effort.  Salut….

The label says ‘By Artesa’ but I could not find out much about this wine except I know what I paid for it and what it retails for, $50 or so.

It’s a young vibrant Napa Cab with not much going on right now.  I believe it is hibernating and waiting to explode in about 2 years time.  For now, the structure is in place awaiting some bottle age to allow the various components to meld and the fruit to re-appear.  I managed to coax Plum Torte and wild flowers out of it, but the nose was very muted.  Young and vibrant tannins are all you will get right now with some bracing acidity.  I would cellar this bad boy for a few years and look at it in 2016 at the earliest.  Potentially a 90 point wine, but I am no expert at this.  For the price, a 3 star wine with potential to go up, it’s just a matter of time.  Salut….