Roots Run Deep Winery
Educated Guess
Cabernet SauvignonNapa Valley
Oakville, California
2005
14.1%
$21.99 at Whole Foods, Austin, TX
Color: Deep red with a tinge of purple
Nose: Blueberries and celery
Body: Full
Front: Cucumber
Middle: Cassis, spice
Back: Licorice, balsa
Burns clean?: Yes
Cap: Cork
The stock market appears to have gone off its meds, an insightful person told me today. So tonight I experimented oenophilically, on the cheaper end of the spectrum than I've been working of late with Cabernets, and with a wine whose name seems rather to describe the economic theory that got us into this mess. The experiment was not a complete failure, but it was a bit disappointing, much like capitalism may come to appear to have been in a few months.
Educated Guess is a large, fruity Napa Cabernet, and a good deal at this price or cheaper. But don't go borrowing on margin on it; there's a weird sort of taste in the front that I can't quite enjoy, and though most of the 2005s are supernal, I think this one might not hold up quite as long, given the not-so-stout tannins. Still, maybe I'm just off my palate today. I cut up a cucumber to test my taste theory on the front of this wine, and sure enough, it did make it more cinnamony and vanillaish by cancelling out the vegetal attack. But then, the cucumber sort of tasted fishy when I ate it after the wine, and that ain't right. I hope. "And so the universal thump," writes Herman Melville, "gets passed around."
There was a bit of the Mollydooker Boxer from yesterday left over, getting a trifle oxidized, so I made a wine sauce out of it the ol' French way, with butter, shallots, stock, a smidgen of garlic and a smidgen of flour. Fantastic: rich, intense, layered stuff, owing not a little to the wine.
