Wine Review - 2009 Hill & Dale Cabernet Shiraz: What a Difference a Year Makes..

This wine was a favorite of ours in the 2008 vintage. It tasted like a $40 wine at $15 and it was awesome. We judged it 85% and it was a very round wine with great balance. It was an absolutely great wine.

So then 2009 comes around and we decided to give it a try.  As the title says what a difference a year makes....

The good news.....it is still a great wine.  That bad news....the roundness and balance we so appreciated in 2008 are diminished.  The 2009 version has a lot more acidity than 2008 and it is overpowering the fruit in the wine which adds astringency to it.  Still this is not a bad wine at all, but if you can still find the 2008 version buy a case of it or buy them out altogether. 

At $15 the 2009 is still a great wine to bring to a dinner party.  It is very approachable but we are longing for the 2008.  A search may be in order.

Even the visual seems to be different.  From what we noted for the 2008 we noticed that the wine didn't have the best look in the glass but the smell and taste made up for that for sure.

This time around the wine definitely looks like a Cab/Shiraz but it doesn't hold up overall.

	Tasting Notes:	Score:
Sight (0-5)	Dark wine with a nice body when swirled.	4.0
Smell (0-5)	Fully bodied nose with a good amount of blackberry and some jamminess.	4.0
Taste (0-10)	Really good wine overall, it does have some fruitiness and the tannins are strong but not too harsh.  The wine falls down in the balance where the acidity takes over and mutes the wine.	8.0
	Total:	16.0 / 20  (80.0%)

Still a worthy drinking wine and as we noted one we would gladly share.

Keep on drinking!

Chris & Shannon