This was our second wine of our Saturday dinner. We were eating Italian so we decided to stick with Italian wine. We enjoyed shrimp cocktail and stuffed mushrooms with garlic, onion,  mushroom, baby shrimp, butter, and breadcrumbs along with lasagna and garlic bread. Once we polished off the Chianti we dove right in:

MobyGrape:86.  I liked it.  I don’t really remember what it was like, I couldn’t really get a handle on the smell but it was smooth with some sort of meh taste at the end.  Super helpful, I know!  I should really try it again and take notes.

colonelgrape: 93. I will try and be more helpful than Moby on this one. Only being 5 years old this is a young bottle. Up front it had a very sophisticated smell of earth, spices, and dark fruit. The tannis gave the wine structure but didn’t overpower it. The fruit taste really came out while the wine was on the palate with tastes of black cherry, citrus, strawberry. There were acids on the palate but it went well with the fruit. It went down very smoothly leaving an earthy, leathery, dark, minerally taste on the back end. This wine was extremely complex and structured. It offered something different every step of the way and I enjoyed it from start to finish. There was enough tannin there that I think this wine would only grow after a few more years in the bottle…I’d love to try it again in 2015-2017.

Guest Opinion: This was touted as a good wine on it’s own, and it delivered.  I felt like it smelled of nail polish, although the Colonel would surely tell me do smell past the alcohol.  I liked the complex flavor and smooth aftertaste.