Dark staining garnet. Crème brûlée woodsy mountain fruit runs hard on a muddy dirt road in a work truck with a camper shell, vinyl dash in the sun and a little spilled gear-lube in back. Sweet-raisin and Astroturf vegetal blows off eventually, revealing blood-orange and cassis dense and ripe toying dangerously with oxidation.

This is a beautiful little wine. I have fond memories of this label spanning 30 years. An entry level Cabernet and it comes with an AMAZING price-point for the appellation. It is also a 2008, which–although I rarely go vintage-dork on you–is bolstering my goal to go down and drink all the 08’s in my cellar in the VERY near future. It’s not as gone as the last 2008’s were–nowhere near–but there’s a thinness of fruit and an over-powering of density in a vacuum of tannin which are troublesome to me.

All the tannin on this thing is right at the entry.  Fruit thins out mid-palate, offering up brick-and-mortar, burnt-out light-bulb austerity with a little baby-diaper flab before disappearing into a Sweet Tart high note of a finish basically devoid of tannin.  I have and will continue to recommend this wine to everyone, just this 08 is not something I would invest in or hold on to much longer.

2008 BURGESS Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 14.5

www.burgesscellars.com