Man, have I been
drinking a lot of wine lately. This after I resolved to go the
cheap route for a while. Oh well, this latest
Chianti Classico was only about $12, and I content myself with the
fact that I probably spend a lot less on
wine than the
average smoker spends on
lighting up. Not much of a
consolation, really, but you gotta believe in somethin'.
I liked this wine. The Wine Spectator, however, hated it, giving it a grade of 80 (the equivalent of saying you'd be better off fermenting the water that collects in the bottom of your refrigerator's lettuce crisper than drinking this swill). I have certainly disagreed with them on many occasions, but this is a really big gap. Maybe they got a bad bottle.
Anyway, the wine was a nice, dark, garnet red with few traces of blue at the edges. The aroma was light on the fruit, offering some cherry, but heavy in general...a prelude to the wine's tannins. The taste was nice and smooth, not too acidic but showing a lot of backbone thanks to the tannins. I think they tended to obscure the wine's fruitiness, which maybe was a major flaw the Wine Spectator's reviewers couldn't work past. I look forward to the rest of the bottle.
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