WTN: Santa Carolina Cabernet Sauvignon Reserva 2004

Valle del Colchagua, Chile.

Dark red in the glass.

Peppery, very tangy nose, with green peppers.

Quite tangy and peppery, cherry fruit, dusty, drying woody tannins, a bit of a bitter edge, strong vegetal streak, with a bit of a bitter edge.

With time and air, the body gained some weight and breadth, but kept its strong bitter, drying woody and green edge.

A fairly long finish, with cherry, spices and strong peppery notes.

Purchased at $13.20 (Canadian), but not worth it.

Bruce,

It sounds like the worst aspects of low-end Cab Sauvignon grown at high crop levels. I've been there and done that, and I ain't going back!

I was quite disappointed as well, obviously. I used to drink Santa Carolina fairly regularly "back in the day" and thought it was better than this.

Bruce, it was better at one time - around 1998. I remember because I used to get it back then too. I thought it had nice structure and typicity, and was usually both ripe and balanced. But a few years later many of those Cabs started taking the green pepper plunge.

[James Roscoe]

Every time I look at this thread I do a double take and wonder what the heck Bruce is doing with a wine from South Carolina.

Bruce, it was better at one time - around 1998.

Well, that's just not fair!! I think that wines, television shows, books, movies, whatever, should be compelled by law to carry a warning label: "Warning, this isn't nearly as good as you remember it being."

Every time I look at this thread I do a double take and wonder what the heck Bruce is doing with a wine from South Carolina.

Don't laugh. I once drank a wine from Tennessee, a gift from a friend who had visited there. The most god-awful ?%%$$#@ I have ever tasted.

Bruce, I too was a Carolina freak in the late `80s. How times have changed eh.