Winey Tasting Notes: A Velvet Sledgehammer And A Song To Sip It With
If you are a person of my age bracket (last of the baby boomers…), when you hear the word “sledgehammer” my guess is you flash back to the 80’s and the song by Peter Gabriel. “I want to be your sledgehammer, Why don’t you call my name..” If you are also like me, you now have an earworm for the rest of the day. I apologize. Kind of.
Now, I recently advanced to a certain age, the celebration of which required a huge surprise party in my honor. (Thank you to the Winey Hubby and the Winey Daughter!) And since I have only the smartest friends on the planet, many of them brought me wine. (No, I am not hard to shop for.) So not only did they gift me on my birthday, they also gave me plenty to write about for quite a while to come.
One of those bottles happened to be filled with Sledgehammer Cabernet Sauvignon (2010, 13.9%, CA). So even though I had the song running and running and running through my head, and I knew that uncorking the bottle would probably cause me to start singing it out loud, I opened it anyway.
The first scents to hit my nose were of dark plums. The first taste to hit me was the chocolate! Yay! And not just any chocolate, layers of mocha and sweet cocoa. It was so good…because it was followed by ripe cherries. Two of my favorite tastes in or out of a wine bottle. It was all tempered by the tannins, which really weren’t very sharp – I’d have to say they leaned toward the mellower side of the scale. The wine felt smooth and supple in my mouth and I would definitely say it was full of flavor.
This was a much more fruit forward Cabernet than I was expecting, especially when you head to the website and find out that this is marketed as a big, manly wine. They’ve got pictures of stubbly faced men and references to bachelor parties all over the thing. But I have to disagree..it wasn’t really a big, in-your-face Cabernet. It didn’t hit you like a sledgehammer (the actual tool, not the song). So while you may shy away from this one because you want a bigger taste, don’t. It’s a very nice, flavorful Cabernet Sauvignon which reminded me of why I liked Cabs in the first place. I would call it a velvet sledgehammer. The price won’t smack you either (around $10).
