2009 Villa Creek Avenger

Community Tasting Note

Likes this wine:

88 Points

Thursday, February 26, 2015 - My wife told me she was in the mood for a "sweet red wine". I've nagged her about the difference between r/s and perceptions of sweetness from extracted fruit, toasted oak, glycerol and high alcohol, etc., but she likes to yank my chain. Anyway, a Villa Creek usually does the trick in situations like this. I pnp'ed and at first this wine was pretty much as expected, with sweet dark berries on the nose and palate, a dusting of cocoa, and some sweet vanilla oak. Not quite a full-bore "wine cocktail" as some cognoscenti deride, but certainly modern, full-bore, extracted. It was also quite easy to slurp down a glass before dinner. We drank about 40% of the bottle and then left it for the following two days. On day 2 and 3 the "sweetness" had blown off somewhat and the tannins somehow actually seemed more pronounced, not softer. It was also rather monolithic; the predominant impression on day 2 and 3 was of concentrated boysenberry/blackberry juice. But not particularly of alcohol. This is definitely a "big" wine and will not appeal to everyone, but if you approach it for what it is it can be fun. I would either tend to pnp and drink in the first hour to surf that wave of vinous sluttishness (to mangle metaphors), or else let it sit for another 3-5 years and hope that the elements pull together a bit more coherently.

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