Saturday, April 11, 2009

Cousino-Macul 2003 Antiguas Reservas Cabernet Sauvignon (Chile)

We took the long way round to get to this wine ... three bottles of dubious wines were opened, each with their own problems (I will not mention the producers of these bottles - their origins were not important), but I will say that the last bottle ended up being corked ... and that led me to the belief that we should stop tasting wines from a category and go for something we knew. What is with all the cryptic-secrecy? Well I hate painting a certain kind of wine with such a broad stroke, but let me just say the three wines were of the Kosher variety, a category I feel is almost as hit and miss as organic. But that debate is for another day. Let's move on to what I had here in this 6 year old Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon. The nose was big with mint and hints of dark chocolate; but the mint really took over here. On the palate it was the same thing, lots of mint, but instead of chocolate there was plenty of woodsy notes. So I decided a decanter might be in order. I can safely say the decanter softened the wine, but it was still very minty with lots of wood and a pseudo-black fruit quality to it. As it stayed open it never did kick the wood or the mint but the wine started to develop leather and black licorice while the pseudo-fruit disappeared into the wood work. Much better than what came before ... but really is that saying much? This wine was palateable and potable and after three bottles that weren't, it was exactly what we were looking for.

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