A new form of wine review

Hello everyone, Rachel and I hope to be able to provide you with some useful information to help you pick out your next wine. I am sitting at my computer sipping a glass of Black Box (yes red wine from a box) 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon from the Central Coast of California writing this. Whether it's wine for a nice meal, backyard barbecue or just for hanging out on a hot summer day; I think you'll find some good advice. First of all, we are not professionals, neither of us has tasted a 1969 Cheval Blanc and use that as a standard of perfection or some other incredibly rare wine that you'll never try.

We have been tasting wine since 1995 when we first went to the Brotherhood Winery in Washingtonville, NY. It is considered America's first winery. It's a small place, rich in history and they aim to educate and provide some decent examples of the major varietals that you'll come across. It was the place where I learned the difference between merlot and cabernet sauvignon, how a dry riesling differs from a Johannesburg riesling and what a sherry is. Overall, it was a fun and educational place to start. Since then we have attended many wine tastings over the years in New England and met many great people along the way. We have several books of labels and comments that we collected from our enjoyment of wine. As of this day, we both have tried at least 100 different grape varietals, either blended or on their own, and wines from nearly every major wine producing country including Hungary, Greece, Israel, and China among the other more well-known wine producing countries.

What you are going to get from us is a straightforward description of the wine and a very simple rating scheme:

(1) We would not buy it again (this does not mean it is bad; just maybe not what we were expecting).
(2) We would buy again from time to time but not more than one at a time.
(3) We would buy a few more bottles.
(4) We would buy a case or more.
(5) Back the truck up and give us all you got.

We don't believe in the point scale used by the "pros". How one can differentiate 1 point between an 89 or 90 and a 90 or 91 on a scale of 100 after trying so many wines is really quite ridiculous to believe. And even more, to benchmark a 100 point wine, many reviewers use some rare wine that I don't think they taste regularly enough to calibrate. Nonetheless, many people go by these ratings. We tend to favor the ratings used by Dorothy and John at the Wall Street Journal - Good, Very Good, Delicious, Best of Tasting - much more relevant to us.

Back to the Black Box Cabernet - I think that this is a buy another bottle from time to time. You get the equivalent of 4 bottles in a box that stays fresh as you pour a glass from time to time. It's a little fruity more black cherries, soft tannins, but has some decent body and finish. Overall a good wine to have when you just need one glass.

Drink what you like, like what you drink!

Rachel and Bryan Gavini