WTN: Great Mount Veeder Cabernets blend

"Cabernets" is not a typo, as the wine is about half and half Cab Sauvignon and Cab Franc.

2000 Random Ridge Mount Veeder Cabernets. Cool abstracty/artsy almost "Aborigine" label. Not interested in cute critters , but I do like a cool label

This opened up very nice straight from the bottle. Nice black red color without much bricking, but this was pretty much fully mature, I think. Lots of black fruit, leather, and tobacco on both the nose and the palette. As the evening went on, red raspberry became more dominant. Didn't like it as much, but it was interesting to taste the change. I would definitely buy this again at 23.99 (Wine Garage in Calistoga rocks for close outs like this one!!!!) Not sure I would save it for five years, though. Still, very enjoyable with bread and "portugese cheese" WineStyles didn't even charge me corkage (the benefits of being too much of a regular!) Almost everyone in the shop enjoyed it (can't finish a whole bottle by myself!)

Mount Veeder is the wine that made a believer out of a friend of mine who, up until that bottle, drank blush zin only. Thanks for your notes, Brian.

My faith in the Appellation has been restored!

I found Mount Veeder Winery's new releases a little too brambly and harsh (probably a matter of aging). I have a bottle of the 2000 regular cab, so I want to try it and see how they age. I also tried one wine (Godpseed) that was so strongly dominated by under-ripe flavors of raw bell pepper that I thought the wine should be skewered and grilled.

(Hess Collection Mount Veeder Cabs are still reliable, of course. They sampled for us the 2004 this past weekend, and I liked it quite a bit.)