Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon Tasting

Many Chilean Cabernets are still well priced… will these 3 examples bring some thunder?

Gary Vaynerchuk: Hello everybody and welcome to Wine Library TV. I am your host Gary Vaynerchuk and this my friends, is the Thunder Show a.k.a the internet’s most passionate wine program and we’re getting out of our cozy element of up stairs. Mott and I have taken the long trip downstairs, one level below and we have a tasting table or we taste a lot of wines, we’re doing a little Twitter mid up. Mott maybe you can zoom around and show all the pretty faces that are in attendance. So, thus all the different wines here that people are tasting but. I’m focusing on this three in the middle, I have noticed that I haven’t done a lot about Chile and I thought Chile deserves a little bit more air time plus I'm thinking about going there and I don’t want to deal with the backlash of not giving it enough exposure. So what we’re focusing on today is Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon, its funny, I really do think overall that Chilean wines are overrated I think a lot of people think of them you know you go around and you go to Time Square and you interview hundred people like kind of drink wine and when you ask them what are good values is a lot of people say Chilean and where that stands from is an article in the mid 90s from consumer reports where they gave Los Vascos cabernet and Walnut Crest Cabernet Sauvignon, the best value place at $5.00 and $8.00 a bottle back then, I mean it was hysteria Nepal Ridge from California was the third cabernet that won best value, I mean this is back in the old store and every customer came in with the consumer reports. It was a different time back then and you know media was totally different in this magazine, push the needle in a scary way and we sold hundreds of cases a week and so from that I think Chile gained a lot of momentum as a value play, I think the varietals that most people talk about with Chilean Cabernet Chardonnay, or Sauvignon Blanc are actually three or two. I think Chilean in the next five to ten years is really going to be known for its Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir. Those are two varieties that really get me excited. However, knowing that this is watched allover the world and Middle America, Europe and different places that may not have the debt selection we’re going to focus on Cabernet Sauvignon because mainly the widely available wines are all three of this and maybe theUnico but, these two are massively available and there still at nice price points if they can deliver we’re not sure about that yet but if they can there are price points that make Cabernet Sauvignon consumption attractive. This is the Unico Luis Miguel, 2004 Gran Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon it is 89 points Jay Miller who writes for Robert Parkers wine advocate and its 12 US bones. Let’s give it a little pour the biggest glasses in the house which is always a fun thing traveling with the Jets bucket. Jets Football right around the corner I'm excited about that and let's give this a sniffy sniff. The first thing that pops out is in a binoxious level of Cassis if you’ve not had Cassis yet please go to your local wigmens or farmers market or whole foods somewhere smell it, taste it because if you want to pick up nuances and wine and you don’t know it, you have no shot because it is so obvious in wines like this. This is over the top Cassis. Almost a little bit uncomfortable like its like a lot, a lot mean pretty much dominates the entire nodes of this wine. Let's give it a whirl. So once again right from the nose to the pallet which is a rarity if you watch the show. Always they don’t always match up here they do, this heavy dose of Cassis, there’s a little pomegranate, a really nice green tea element on the backend which I think is probably the most fascinating part of this wine. There’s a little oak but the oak monster is not in the house which I appreciate and there’s a little shredded dark chocolate flavors as well. Overall in the pallet is quite smooth, there’s a little hint of tannins to tell you its not a pushover, you know like somebody really like but the thing say watch yourself that’s what this wine is doing, you know its kind of light and all the sun and gets you a little tannins on the backend it says I’m not a box wine buddy. All right I’m sorry so let’s give it one more shot. I mean this is Cassis all day. I kind of like it, its very approachable, a very much competes on the worlds stage of $12.00 Cabernet Sauvignon so as to the value play its kind of interesting, I probably scored 86 plus 87 maybe 87 plus you know what nice people in the place let’s go 87 plus and a little bit of a better mood. Good value 12 bones definitely if you were a candle Jackson semi Rodney strong that commodity in the supermarket brand cabernet drinker this is something you want to seek out because it has definitely a second of flavors that a lot of those don’t come with and its not a bad start to the training cab show. All right let’s move on. Concha Y Toro known for the jags I know all that the big bottles, seven bones, you get twisted on it I get it but they make better stuff this is the Marquis Casa Concha, 2006 a consistently high scoring wine that is really kind of changed Concha y toro’s brand plus the --is a wine that some people consider the best of Chile, this is a $15.00 bottled wine the it is not scored yet, again going back five to seven vintages now this wine has consistently been one of the wines spectator value place, always one of our top 10 selling cabernets from Chilean year after year has great color. Definitely a darker, little more black kind of coloring in the person to the Unico. Let's give it a sniffy sniff. Its more rustic this is a little bit more all the world on the nose and almost comes across, almost poured all like on the nose. This is a little stinginess going on, almost like a pig farm kind of thing. So it’s a little bit barn yard on the nose which is quite intriguing actually. Yeah its also smoky and it almost has like a charcoal barbecue kind of thing going on, kind of gamy on the nose. Interesting. Let's give it a whirl. Also pretty solid. How’s good tannins well made, maybe a little bit kind of cab you know it doesn’t have a lot of charisma outside the boxes maybe you know I’ve never been a huge fan of somebody who colors completely in the lines but always freaks me out a little bit. It’s a bad this wine does that and so that kind of lax a little the excitement that I’m looking for, however, it does when it does right, it’s a cab, it taste like a cab, its got big tannins, big firm black fruit flavors on the backend almost like taking the skins of blueberries like I don’t know how you do that, its pretty hard but it took a bunch of them, peeled them all down and ate it. You going to get tannins, the bitterness from the skins but its looking at some of that blueberry sunshine love, this has a little blueberry sunshine love and who wouldn’t want a little blueberry sunshine love in their lives. Chocolate again which is obviously exactly what we soften in the Unico, well made a hair boring vanilla definitely, mocha, it’s a little Starbuck see there on the backend. I kindly go 85 points, 86 points and you know what I’m going to go 87 plus here and I’, going to go 86 points here mainly because it’s good, it’s just boring. I don’t understand this so if your name is Stan I apologize. All right let’s move on and finally the Montes Alpha 2007, Cabernet Sauvignon this wine is 89 points wine spectator $16.00. Let's give it a sniffy sniff. Oh first you look at the color kind of similar to the Concha Y Toro a sniffy sniff, huge nose definitely the biggest to the bunch of the three of this wines, this almost has like a burnt rubber with cherry pie kind of play. Almost like you’re eating your cherry pie and there’s like a little tire in a grow but its kind of delicious you know like and you eat it. So it’s a little bit of that kind of thing going on, a little cranberry action as well, a little Massachusetts action on the nose, another cranberry which I like, which is quite smooth and a little swing this on the nose. Definitely a bigger bolder, almost again similar to the Concha Bordeaux like nose which is nice and its kind of like a little earthiness mix in a little new ones earthiness. Let's give it a whirl. The oak monster makes a rare appearance on the thunder show. I’m a little bit have said about it, this wine is absolutely for my pallet and a little over oak, I don’t want to go outside and start eating sticks and I don’t want to drink wine that does this to my pallet. Dry which I like again the oak is considerable here. I mean its very creamy now on the backend, all I’m really tasting is residual splinters I feel like I should be picking them out of my pallet right now and it bothers me and what’s sad is it really overtakes this really nice like blackberry mulberry connection like a tag team. Maybe like tag team chips blackberry mulberry--I like it. The problem is as soon as I saw it the oak monster came in punch them in the face, punch me in the face and run off with our cheeks it was devastating, that’s what happened in this wine and that is happening way too often and my opinion with this price point with cabernet in general and not that I want winery to stop using oak I think it can be use quite well but when you allow the oak then make up to take away from the natural beauty, you’re making a mistake and this is the example. Plenty of times you need some make-up. There’s plenty of wines that need it but this didn’t, this have stuff galling for it and then all of a sudden when it Mottered too much make up, too much oak covered the essence of this wine stripped it of its soul, it went corporate its sold out and it really sucks because I have the potential being something interesting in turn for my pallet becomes a 79, 78 point wine. However, that being said keep in mind I’m very aware of what sells in the store of what people come back to buy this is a popular style wine and if you’re still on the oak train which you’re very well maybe and God Bless its your pallet not mine and don’t listen to me, you know what you like as in fact all this wonderful people going to taste it and a couple of minute like I don’t know he was talking and this is fantastic and that’s great to for doing that. Try different things though, I think you’ll not the old start single lighter when you become more of a serious winemaker. You don’t like the oak its just something that I’m passion about and to me it’s a lost opportunity to be different because here’s where I get passion about this, this can be replicated for 899 in Australia. That’s what happens when you make up it think about it. All of us could look like kiss right we were not all, we know all look like Jim Simons but you’re putting up enough make-up we all basically look like that, that’s what happens when you over oak wine too much make up. Question of the day, what make up do you like to wear. You wanted to see the guys you know other guys are wearing eyeliner now so that’s big thing. Mott is been rocking in. You with a little bit of me we are changing the wine world.