Winey Tasting Notes: Celebrating Milestones with Liberty School Cabernet Sauvignon
Isn’t it funny how you remember certain things about certain events? In my case, I am talking about the wine (big surprise there). The Winey Hubby and I have been married for 28 years (I was, um, a child bride, yeah, that’s it, a child bride), and while all of our anniversary celebrations have been fun, our 20th was one for the books.
Let me take you back to that year: 2005. On the day of our actual anniversary, the Winey Son (then 13 years old) was playing in a golf tournament. The 18 holes were slated to be done in plenty of time for The Winey Grammy to come over and babysit son and his then 9 year old sister while Hubs and I went out to dinner. What we did not plan on, but should have, given the Northeast Ohio weather, was the continuous rain that fell starting early in the morning. Starting tee times were delayed. And delayed. And…OK, you get the idea here. The only problem was that this was the final tournament of a summer long series of matches held throughout the area. It had to be played. And given the fact that they could only close the course to outsiders for one day, it had to be played that day. At some point, the skies cleared a bit and the decision was made that the golfers would play a 9 hole tournament. That still did not even remotely guarantee that our son would be done in time for us to make our dinner reservation. So Grammy joined us at the course with the Winey Daughter in tow and we all settled in to follow the 9 holes. To this day, I am so glad we stayed because the Winey Son actually took home a very nice trophy.
The Winey Hubby, being the very kind person that he is, decided that we needed to celebrate not just our anniversary, but the golf trophy as well, so our romantic dinner for 2 turned into a dinner for 5 rather wet people. And it was at this dinner that Grammy and I discovered Liberty School Cabernet Sauvignon. It actually was a good thing she was with us, because she and I are the red wine lovers. It didn’t come by the glass, so I never would have tasted it if we hadn’t ordered the celebratory bottle. (I am also glad we had a really nice dinner, because our planned anniversary trip to New Orleans was cancelled by a hurricane named Katrina a few weeks later.)
Flash forward to this past summer, when I celebrated a milestone birthday. One of the ones with a zero at the end of it. And there among my presents was a bottle of the Liberty School Cabernet Sauvignon (2010, 13.5%, Paso Robles, CA). It was surrounded by an array of designer chocolates too, making it a VERY memorable pairing! And I liked it just as much on my significant birthday as I did on my 20th wedding anniversary.
The wine starts out with an aroma of dark, ripe cherries and plums along with a whiff of oaky spices. The taste is less fruity than you’d think, given the bouquet: still the cherry and some red berry, but the spice is a bit more pronounced here – nutmeg or allspice. Definitely an autumnal spice taste. As you might guess, the tannins hang around and are medium strong – not drying, but they really gave the wine some nice structure.
Buy this wine if you like a well behaved, well rounded, smooth red wine, especially if you like a little oak with your fruits. I would call this is really versatile wine – on its own, with food, and very definitely with the chocolate raspberry truffles that I had to grab from the Winey Daughter and make her share. Geesh – they were my present, after all. But I digress. Great wine, great price (about $15), great sipping. Great memories.
Cheers!!
