Community Tasting Note

• csimm wrote: 90 points

  March 16, 2016 - PnP with notes of red and purple berry fruit, red and black currant, cocoa powder, and chalk. Not filling in much on the mid-palate and a bit of a bite on the finish. Into the decanter it went.
  
  With some air, it rounded out a little. Maintained its more red fruit profile, with currant, dark dried cranberry, and cedar flavors. Fattened up a tad on the palate, but fell off on the back end. Complexity wasn't there, nor was any energetic "oomph."
  
  Not a bad wine, but certainly nothing like the other Cliff Lede reds. This was good, but it tasted like the proverbial "standard" cabernet; like something I could get at BevMo.
  
  This was what I would consider a "throw away bottle" as part of the recent wine club shipment from Cliff Lede (maybe they had an extra 100 cases of this wine and decided to throw a bottle of it in every allocation to off-load their inventory); I'm not a fan of moves like that.
  
  In any event, if you have one, drink it over the next few years. It is medium-bodied and would pair ok with a pork loin or hamburger. If you don't have one, I say don't bother unless you find it on the secondary market for under $40.
  
  90 points max.

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2 Comments

• T.O.Wineaux commented:

  4/1/16, 4:16 PM - This is why I hate joining wine clubs...although there are benefits with some it seems to me many of the wineries offload wines on club members they are unable to sell through normal retail channels. IMO it's not the best way to drive brand loyalty to the discerning wine consumer.

• csimm commented:

  4/1/16, 4:29 PM - Well said! I totally agree. It is for this very reason that I will ultimately dump these guys. It's too bad, as a select few of their wines are very good (e.g.: Beautiful Generation and BTK), but others are fairly forgettable. I just don't like paying for wine I don't want or don't care about just so I can remain on some stupid list in order to get wine I actually want. I guess the good news is that there is plenty of wine out there where you don't need to be part of any club. At least I can say I gave Cliff Lede a day in court. Oh well. On to better wineries. Thanks very much for the comment! Take care!

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