December’s Virtual Tasting will be Chateau Ste Michelle’s Indian Wells Cabernet 2005. Chateau Ste Michelle obviously needs no introduction. The Indian Wells Cabernet is composed of fruit from a variety of vineyards in the Columbia Valley including Chateau Ste Michelle’s own Indian Wells Vineyard. This wine is widely available in wine and grocery stores including Safeway and retails for $18, although it can often be found on sale.
Recently a friend inquired about what a virtual tasting is. Their thinking was that no wine was consumed but rather wine tasting was somehow “visualized.” While the economy may be bad, it has not yet come to that. One of the most fun things about wine tasting for me is enjoying it with friends and hearing what other people have to say about the wine. Here we are doing the same thing except, since we can’t all always be together, we do the tasting and post our notes on-line.
The Virtual Tasting will take place on Thursday December Monday 18th. For this virtual tasting, I will also be inviting a few friends over and doing a live tasting and would encourage you to do the same. I will be opening the bottle at about 7pm and posting my notes up around 9pm. Please join us in trying this wine and posting your notes.
You can read about previous virtual tastings below.
They did not have the ’05 at my local market, so I tried the ’06. Nice nose. I could really smell the fruit, and a hint of clove. It has a nice round body. Was not a match with the snapper we had for dinner, but went nicely with the dark chocolate after. I taste currant, clove and dark fruit. I like its smoothness, balanced acid, drinkability. I prefer a wine with brighter fruit, but thought this would be a nice match with meat or a saucy entree.