2007 Santa Carolina Cabernet Sauvignon Reserva Colchagua Valley 14.0%
Nine months spent in a uterus of American and French oak. I expected to hate this, but didn't. Maybe I just wanted to feel virtuous by not behaving like an ideological fanatic. Or maybe my expectations were conditioned by the zero expense (this was a gift). Fact is, two smallish pours of this went down quite well with dinner.
Aromas of ripe plums and blackberries, amplified by coffee and cocoa in the mouth, where it is jammy, with a sweetish finish. But tannins are quite pleasantly grainy, with a lightness that belies the grain in grainy. The acid is deficient, but there is a curiously pleasant bitterness that performs the role of acidity with transvestite aplomb. Alcohol does not taste excessive and the oak is discreet. Not a style I'd buy but, by golly, it wasn't offensive.
Marcia was dead set against it, having been totally won over by the mantra of acid/sweet balance (which I normally subscribe to). But my vanity, perhaps, was fed by not prejudging it too much and feeling humble enough to learn something from it. And what I learned, I think, is that in the search for balance in red wine, acid/sweet may be the primary, but isn't the only player. In a white wine, acid/sweet is probably imperative, but in a red, tannins and bitterness can, in certain (perhaps rare) circumstances, compensate for acid deficiency enough to establish sufficient balance between the yin and the yang.
