Sizing Up Sauvignon Blanc

Summertime. And the living is hot. (image from DKC Service)

Sauvignon Blanc always has the effect of a liquid air conditioner on me. One cool glass and I can feel my core temperature drop and imagine a fresh breeze on my skin.

It would be an understatement to say that there is a lot of Sauvignon Blanc in the market. Let's face it: there's tons of the stuff. It comes from nearly every region of the globe, and finding your way among the options can be a bit daunting. Happily, most bottles are eminently affordable, which makes it possible to experiment without facing bankruptcy.

I must confess that I have a predilection (especially when the temperature rises) for Sauvignon Blancs from New Zealand, which are the epitome of refreshment. But don't forget that regions closer to home, like the Napa Valley, make excellent Sauvignon Blanc, too. Check out some of my favorites below.



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Cabernet Sauvignon Showdown- 14 under $20

We’ve been reviewing Cabernet Sauvignon for the past several weeks and now it’s time to do the roundup of all the reviews.

Usually, we name a specific wine as the top pick in these roundups.  But this time we’re going with a wine region: Chile.  Chilean wines took the top five spots in our showdown.  To be fair though, Chile also has one at the bottom of the list.  And we did review a couple California Cabs recently that were 90-pointers, but they were also over $20 and therefore didn’t make this list.

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Carmen Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon

Although Viña Carmen has been around since 1850, it was reborn in 1987 when it was acquired by Claro Group.  Today, their main vineyards are in Maipo Valley, but they also have vineyards in Rapel, Casablanca and Curicó Valley.  And they are one of the top producers in Chile.

This wine continues the trend we’ve found of Chilean wines delivering exceptional quality for the price.

Although it’s labeled as Cabernet Sauvignon, technically it’s only 85% Cab, with 10% Syrah and 5% Merlot.  This is a well-oaked, but not over-oaked wine, with 80% of it aged in a combination of French and American oak for 10 months.

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Napa Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon

You might be surprised to find out how many of the wine brands you see on the shelves come from the same company.  There are a few giants in the wine business, plus thousands of small wineries.  One of the giants whose brands you’ll come across in just about any grocery store that sells wine is Bronco Wine Company.  They produce multitudes of brands and most of them are bargain-priced wines.  One of those brands is Napa Ridge.

When you get into wine it can be easy to cop an attitude about cheap wine brands and paint them all as bad wines.  And while there are some bad ones out there, the truth is that production technology has advanced to a point where even the cheap, mass-produced wines can be pretty tasty.  They may not have the complexity, concentration, structure or character that some premium wines have, but some of them are still tasty.  I try to have an open mind with every wine that I taste and I have been surprised by some.

This one I found to be drinkable, but not surprisingly awesome.

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Peñalolen Cabernet Sauvignon

I don’t have a lot of background on Peñalolen to share.  The winery was founded by Ricardo and Isabel Peña, who brought in Jean-Pascal Lacaze as their winemaker.  Peñalolén also happens to be the name of a community at the eastern edge of Santiago, right up against the Andean foothills.  This is part of the Maipo Valley and while the Peñalolen winery also produces a Sauvignon Blanc with grapes from Casablanca Valley, the grapes in this Cabernet Sauvignon are from Maipo.

Maipo may be Chile’s best known wine region, probably due to the fact that Santiago resides within this region and most large Chilean producers started in Maipo.  It’s also the only official Chilean winemaking region without a coastline.  Most wine produced from Maipo is red and the region is best known for its Cabernet.  So, let’s find out how this one holds up.

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Gran Verano Cabernet Sauvignon

As a publisher focused on reviewing inexpensive wines, we can’t ignore the “bag in a box” segment, also known as “boxed wine.”  We’ve actually reviewed a couple boxed wines before and we’ve found some decent ones out there.  Boxed wine doesn’t get much respect.  In many ways, that’s deserved.  There is some heinous stuff out there in boxes.  But more and more producers are putting quality wine into boxes and I think you’ll see that trend increase over the coming years.

I was intrigued when I came across this particular wine.  After all, we’re big fans of Chilean wine at Cheap Wine Ratings.  I was curious to find out what a bag in a box wine from Chile would have to offer.  Here’s what I found.

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X Winery Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon

The general rule here is that most reviews are for wines that are $20 and under, but I have to admit that that’s not all I drink.  After all, how could I legitimately compare bargain wines to higher-priced ones if I never tasted those.  And every now and then I get samples sent to me for wines that are just over my general price limit.  This is one of those occasions and I’m not going to exclude it just based on price.  If it’s out of your personal price range, then don’t buy it.  But I know that a lot of readers here have a pretty broad price range, and they come here to get ideas for bargains or just to find tasty wines to try.  And I would actually spring a couple extra bucks for this wine.

We’ve reviewed a number of X Winery wines in the past, and admittedly I have yet to find one that I don’t love.  X Winery is based in Napa, California and they produce Amicus wines

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Santa Ema Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon

When I’m not enjoying a bargain wine, in other words when I splurge, I have a preference for Italian wines, especially those from the Piedmont region.  If you know wines from this region, you know that many of them have exceptional depth, structure, complexity and balance.  Simply put, they’re beautiful wines.  Most of them don’t come cheap, so I’m not able to enjoy them every day.  But given my affinity for both Piedmont and Chilean wines, it caught my eye when I saw that this Chilean wine has roots from Piedmont.  The founder of Santa Ema, Pedro Pavone Voglino, immigrated from Piedmont to Chile in 1917.  He was the son of an Italian winemaker and planted his first vineyards in Chile in 1931.

While that might not tell you anything about the wine, there is more to enjoying wine than just looking, smelling and tasting.  Enjoying wine is an experience.  There’s a ritual involved, like the whole process of pulling the cork, pouring, swirling.  And there’s an emotional element.  We develop a fondness for certain types of wine, regions, winemakers, brands, etc.  For me, finding a wine with connections to both Piedmont and Chile sparked a fondness for both regions, and a curiosity.

I have to say, I wasn’t disappointed.  This is a really nice wine.

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Main Street Winery Cabernet Sauvignon

not that any of them are exceptionally long.  I like to get right to the point.  So, let’s get there.

The 2006 Main Street Winery Cabernet Sauvignon is a blend of 92% Cabernet Sauvignon and 8% Merlot, with grapes from Lake County (54%), Monterey County (24%) and Santa Barbara County (22%).  The wine did spend 12 months in a combination of French and American oak.

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In Pursuit of Simplicity: Sauvignon Blanc

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Black Box Cabernet Sauvignon

A lot of fun has been poked over the years at boxed wines.  And rightfully so.  Most of the wine sold in boxes over the past couple decades has been disgusting.  But that’s starting to change.  It’s not the container, it’s the wine… and there are a few producers now putting some tasty juice into boxed wines.

You no longer need to avoid boxed wines, but like any other wine you’ll still find some that are better than others.  Actually, you may want to get used to the idea of boxed wines, as many in the wine industry predict that you’ll see more and more of them over time.  The reason is simple, shipping costs.  Bottles add a lot of extra weight to wine.  While I didn’t weigh it to find out exactly, this box of Black Box wine felt about as heavy as two bottles of wine to me, yet it has the equivalent volume of four standard 750ml bottles of wine.

There are other benefits to wine in a box, besides shipping weight.  The wine stays fresh longer after you open it.  When you open a bottle of wine, the exposure to air degrades the quality of the wine and within a couple days it’s no good.  But with bag-in-a-box wine, air does not enter the container when you open it, allowing it to stay fresh for up to 30 days.

Black Box wines is not very old as a brand

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Los Vascos Special Selection Cabernet Sauvignon

OK, so first my apologies for letting over a week go by without a new review.  While I can say, “I’ve been really busy,” ultimately that’s just an excuse and I hate excuses.  Rather than that, I will promise to do better this week.

If you’re a regular reader, it will come as no surprise that I’m reviewing yet another Chilean wine.  The outstanding values coming from Chile are too good to pass up.

We’ve actually reviewed some other Los Vascos wines before, including a previous vintage of their Cabernet Sauvignon.  This particular bottle is labeled as “Special Selection” and it’s only available from Whole Foods.  So, I guess that means it was “specially selected” for them.  It is from Colchagua Valley and it is 14% ABV, just like the Los Vascos Cabernet Sauvignon that’s not labeled as “Special Selection,” so I honestly don’t know if there’s any real difference between the stuff labeled as “Special Selection” that you’ll find at Whole Foods and the regular Los Vascos Cabernet Sauvignon that you’ll find elsewhere.   In other words, the “Special Selection” part could just be a marketing thing.  Nonetheless it’s a good wine.

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Turning Leaf Cabernet Sauvignon

There’s not a lot of back story to this wine.  It’s Turning Leaf, which is one of wine giant E.&J. Gallo’s many brands.  You’ll find it in just about any grocery store that sells wine.  It’s mass produced… so there’s lot’s of this stuff out there.  There is not a quaint story about a family of winemakers that have passed down the winery from one generation to another.  There’s not pontifications about terroir.  It’s just wine.

I’ll be honest.  When I get a sample like this, I’m not that excited about tasting it.  But the producers use technology to their advantage to create a decent wine.  It’s not unique, it’s not exciting, but it’s decent.  Like the majority of wines reviewed here, this one was tasted blind.  I like to make that clear after I’ve hinted at a bias against a production wine like this.

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Montevina Cabernet Sauvignon

A few weeks ago, we reviewed the Montevina Zinfandel.  Tonight, we check out their Amador County Cabernet Sauvignon.  I’ve already given a quick background on Montevina in the previous review, so let’s be quick about this and get right to the details.

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The Benefits of Short-Term Aging: the Case of Cabernet Sauvignon

I suppose there is a technical difference between cellaring and short-term aging. Cellaring wine, for me, means putting wine away for so long that you forget you have it and then are pleasantly surprised to discover you actually do NOT need to buy wine for Christmas 2015 because you actually bought wine for that occasion back in 2007!

But even short-term aging--by my definition wine that you set aside for 1-3 years--can make for a nice discovery when, on a cold winter's night, you make yourself a soup or roast or even whip up some burgers and find that you have a perfect bottle of wine that's been sitting around waiting for you.

As you know I drink mostly wine under $20, but even bottles that cost relatively little can benefit from some time to grow. What happens when they do? To my taste, the wines become smoother and more subtle. The fruit steps quietly aside and lets other notes--floral, herbal, woody--come forward. These are all transformations that I enjoy.


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Forest Glen Cabernet Sauvignon

We’ve reviewed a couple other Forest Glen wines in the past and I have to admit that they consistently perform surprisingly well in blind tastings.  Forest Glen is one of many brands owned by Bronco Wines, best known as the producer of Charles Shaw (aka: two-buck chuck).

Most of the Bronco brands are bargain wines, and most wine snobs would not think of them as a “fine wine” company.  I’ve tasted a number of their brands and some are definitely better than others.  To be blunt, I’ve found some to be best as lubricants to the drain of my kitchen sink.  But Forest Glen is one of their brands that has yet to disappoint me, and this Cabernet Sauvignon continues that trend.

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Dancing Bull Cabernet Sauvignon

years ago as a brand focused on Zinfandel, and to this day that’s the wine for which I assume they’re best known.  We’ve reviewed reviewed their Zinfandel in the past, and it was pretty good.  But that’s not all they’re producing.  After their success with Zinfandel, they’ve branched out into other varieties and today we’re tasting the Cabernet Sauvignon.

If you’ve spent much time browsing the wine isles at you’re local shops, the bull icon on this label may look familiar

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Wild Hare Cabernet Sauvignon

It should come as no surprise that the label on a wine can have a significant impact on sales.  I know I’ve seen some wines where the label totally “wowed” me and other labels that have made a wine appear unappealing to me.  But this is a wine with a label that I just don’t get at all.  It features a cartoon rabbit chilling on the beach with sunglasses, a cooler full of bottles on ice and a glass of wine in hand.  This is not a label that makes me want to buy

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Urban Cabernet Sauvignon by Ortega Fournier

Ortega Fournier, better known as O. Fournier, is an international wine group, currently producing wines from Spain, Argentina and Chile.  As far as wine companies go, they are relatively young, having only been founded ten years ago, in 2000.  And it’s even more recently, in 2007, that they’ve begun operations in Chile, where they have properties in San Antonio Valley and Maule Valley.  But you don’t have to be an old company to produce great wine, and O. Fournier is proving that.

For those who’ve been reading Cheap Wine Ratings for a while, it should come as no surprise that we’re reviewing another Chilean wine.  We’re big fans of Chile because you get outstanding bang for your buck with the wines coming out of this part of the world.  And I’m adding Urban Cabernet Sauvignon to the list of outstanding options when it comes to Chilean wine.

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