This is your basic young California Cabernet. Josh is actually made by Joseph Carr (as you can see in the top left of the picture) but this is their next tier up from the basic wines. We’ve had it in the past and liked it however we’ve never had it this young. What do we eat with cabs? Steak. We went with steak tips and grilled potatoes.

colonelgrape: 73. I can’t give it a terrible score because I know this wine has potential as I’ve had it in the past but this bottle was just too young. It was bursting fruit and it was just too simple to drink right now. There weren’t as many tannins as I expected but that’s probably because we decanted it well before dinner. I have a rule of thumb for California Cabernet: Don’t drink it less than 3 years old. I find a lot of them are good from 3-5 years but anything younger is just jammy and full of tannin…especially the less expensive bottles. If you’re going to drink cab young make sure you decant it properly and if you can afford it go with a reputable producer.

MobyGrape: 83.  This one was decanting for well over an hour by the time we got to drinking it, that probably helped out the rating.  I don’t know if it was the age or the decanting but there weren’t strong tannins, it lived on the fruitier side of cab and didn’t have that winey taste that some younger cabs have.  When I say fruitier I mean that it doesn’t actually taste like fruit to me, but as far as wines go I can convince myself it tastes like some kind of berry if someone’s demanding that it does *ahem, Colonel* but it’s not like drinking juice or eating an actual fruit.  Anyways, perfectly fine wine for a non-fancy meaty dinner (save the good stuff for a nice steak).  Even though I’m pretty sure I picked this one up I can’t quite remember how much it was, hopefully I didn’t pay too much for it.  Maybe it was $15 or so.

PS: We’re almost done reviewing all of our 2012 wines. Stay tuned for a summary of our December ratings and we’ll finish it off with our Champagne choice from New Year’s Eve.