Wine Review - 2008 Wente Southern Hills Cabernet Sauvignon: Wickedly Good California Cab

Wente is a producer we have heard a lot about anecdotally over the last little while.  We have heard good things and we decided to get this Cabernet which is a tad higher in price than we would normally get ($22.50) but once we opened it....it was totally worth it.  The wine is billed as 80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7% Petite Sirah, 6% Merlot, 4% Barbera, 3% Petite Verdot.  So there are a lot of grapes wrapped up in the wine.  The complexity shows throughout.

First off as soon as you smell this wine it smells exactly how you think a California Cab should smell.  Big and bold....there is fruit and oak and spice.  It you can ever go to Wine Country in California, take a deep breath cuz that is what this smells like.  It has a delicious nose that smells hotter than it tastes.

The swirl is again, exactly what we would expect from California Cab.  Deep and dark with a lot of "legs" forming on the side of the glass, it looks great.

The flavours are amazing....it is warm and round and elegant.  There is a lot of fruit in the taste that work well with the oak and the tannins.  Everything just plays well together with this wine.  The mouthfeel is where this wine really shines.  It is very big and bold with a lot of stuff going on.  It just works all around.

	Tasting Notes:	Score:
Sight (0-5)	Deep and dark colour with a very purple look.  Seems thick in the glass as the legs stream down the glass.	4.0
Smell (0-5)	Big and bold with lots of fruit and oak.  Delicious.	4.5
Taste (0-10)	Fruit, oak and tannins with lots of roundness and balance.  An elegant wine.	8.5
	Total:	17.0 / 20  (85.0%)

This is one great wine.  Buy it if you want try to a good example of California Cab.

Keep on drinking!

Chris & Shannon