After my recent rant on pedestrian wines, I HAD to open something REALLY PEDESTRIAN. Here is waist-hi supermarket wine–and over a decade old. $15.99 maybe? Not Alexander Valley… Not Sonoma Mountain or Valley… Just plain old Sonoma County and probably 80k cases made. But to wit: everything you need in a wine and nothing you don’t. Dark and dense in the glass, no bricking to speak of, a maroon rim gracing an otherwise dark, concentrated core. The nose peels off layers of redwood and gracious soil, spicy and vibrant while teetering a bit on early tertiary. Black pepper and madrone bark cover an earthy gander at delicious blackberry fruit and dark cherry stuffing, molded with easy nuances of herbs de Provence and sage. Gracious alcohol and smatterings of rocky creek and pond-water influence the bouquet, but everything is tight and stalwart. Then you taste it.
Delicious and piquant, true, mild Cab screaming at every receptor, it reaches into ratchety regions of briar and agnst before settling down into harsh tannin. Supple to a point while grasping at points of light shocking in a 10YO supermarket offering, THESE are the wines we love and which are fast-fading in the overwhelming desire of marketers to present a sweet-tooth-pinging, bigger-is-better, California-AVA takeover of grocery shelves in the US. Steely nose inflitrates the palate on early intake, polishing every fruit decadence with acidic structural components. Thick and chunky while maintaining a streamlined aura of austere Cab delicacy, THESE are the wines we’re looking for. Bargain??? Don’t even start.
2012 CHATEAU ST. JEAN Cabernet Sauvignon Sonoma Co. 14.2
Stephen McConnell 