Blinders on

Blind Tasting
Three supermarket California Cabernets
Around $10.00 or less (on sale)
Jen’s notes

Wines:

2003 Turning Leaf Cabernet Sauvignon (Reserve) $3.99
2002 J. Lohr Cabernet Sauvignon $11.99
2002 Concannon Cabernet Sauvignon $6.99

Method:

We opened the wines, removing the entire foil capsule as well (figuring that the color and weight of the foil would be a tip-off). Next, we placed each bottle in a paper bag and taped the bag securely around the neck. We took turns mixing up the bottles to make sure that we wouldn’t remember which one was which. Oh, and we wrote a number on each bag which didn’t seem to matter at the time, but it does allow us to keep the reader in suspense until the end of the piece. Finally, we poured a good-sized tasting portion of each wine into its own glass (Williams-Sonoma’s own all-purpose glasses) and took turns tasting each one.

Notes:

Wine no. 3 didn’t have much nose and had even less taste. Oddly, the wine was both too tannic and not tannic enough: there were plenty of tannins, but they lacked finesse and "oomph." The tannins were not integrated, perhaps because there weren’t any other flavors with which to integrate them. We both observed this lack of complexity and complete lack of flavor; Shane said that the wine was flat, and I thought it definitely lacked fruit, especially for a less expensive wine. In our experience, cheap wines tend to be overly, sweetly fruity, without much in the way of tannins. My final thought before we moved on to number 2 was that the wine made my tongue numb.

Wine no. 2 was the complete opposite. It had a big fruity-floral nose, lots of plummy fruit on the palate, but it didn’t end there. Unfortunately, the fruit flavors were soon overwhelmed by an intense vanilla flavor – enough vanilla buttercream for the Trumps’ wedding cake. The wine was quite oaky as well, with a hint of butter on the finish. The tannins were actually quite nice (unobtrusive, but they did a good job, all things considered). We both thought that the winemaker should have left the varietal flavors alone instead of pasting vanilla over them. There were some good elements here in the fruit and tannin, but the vanilla flavor overwhelmed everything.

Wine no. 3 exhibited pencil lead on the nose and similar graphite flavors on the palate. It had a good dash of peppery spices and smooth, fairly integrated tannins. There were definite fruit flavors here as well. Though not great, this wine was the most balanced and the best of tasting. Shane said that it was "the only one that tasted like a wine."

The results:

Wine no. 3: Turning Leaf
Wine no. 2: J. Lohr
Wine no. 1: Concannon

We both pegged the Turning Leaf quite easily. The other two were a bit harder. We went into this wanting J. Lohr to win handily, but it was not to be. Shane had Concannon and J. Lohr as 2 and 1, respectively, and I had the opposite. However, we both agreed that Wine No. 1, the Concannon, won the tasting.

So, we finished up the Concannon which we actually liked a bit less upon further acquaintance, probably due to vanilla flavors that developed as the wine opened up a bit more. Usually, a little bit of vanilla is fine but, as with the J. Lohr, the vanilla here was not as integrated as it should have been.

We drew two conclusions from our blind tasting: (1) you probably won’t find a good California Cab in the supermarket around the $10.00 mark (certainly not for less than $10.00); (2) folks who are making low-priced/supermarket wines need to step back before adding the new oak wood chips, et al. Heavy oak and pasted-on vanilla do not make up for lack of varietal character. Ironically, Turning Leaf got this part right; they just skipped the varietal character.