Just tried Caymus 40th.....

Went to a local wine shop that has the Caymus 40th at their tasting bar at $7 a pour. I had little to no desire to try it, but I just needed to see how wrong RP was giving this a 96.

What an absolute mess of a wine (to me anyway). It was like drinking cough syrup. Way to sweet for a Cab. Big Dark Berries and Vanilla, but no structure, no complexity just a big giant sugar explosion in my mouth. Good thing I’m not a diabetic.

I can see how people with little to no palate would enjoy this as it’s definitely an in your face big red, that someone without much tasting experience might be drawn to (especially with the label alone), but this will be the first and last one of these I try.

yeah, it’s a pretty big syrupy mess. I don’t get it. Plenty of great 2012 cabs out there. Why this somehow got a 96 is mind boggling to me.

FWIW…and I am not necessarily speaking to just you…
I hear you,and certainly it is easy to fall into the trap of belittling/denigrating other’s palates,supposed drinking experience and/or age necessary to bolster our feelings of superiority in the wine assessing world,but,there are many drinkers,here on this board,out in the real world,who have loved these wines and others of like ilk for decades.Lots of people will fight and argue to the death for these wines,for Sandrone…for cabs,baroli and rhones dripping with oak…and to some of us,these wines seem sterile,lifeless,extreme, with no sense of place or time…and yet gaggles of others will disparage those thoughts with all the verbiage and buying power that they can bring.

Who is right?
Is someone wrong?

Meant no disrespect to anyone. I am not a huge fan of Caymus in general, but most of their stuff is still pretty good and they are pretty consistent with their juice. This just missed the mark for me. I just didn’t get it.

Me neither.
Me too.

I tasted it awhile ago when it first hit the market. No surprises, tastes like Caymus. It is right on target for the Caymus customer. Seems like they know that customer pretty well and want to continue supplying them with what they like and buy. Smart business no? Why make thin, weedy, fecal dreck for AFWE folks like me when their much larger audience prefers purple ice cream syrup drank?

Dreck or Drank? The choice is yours. There is no right or wrong, just personal preference. neener

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The Wagner family no doubt has a higher net worth than mine so I suppose you are right.

This is not for me, but I am not a fan of this style in general. What I will say is that if you like the Caymus style then you will love this wine. I think it is an “amped up” version of a typical Caymus Cab Sav and has plenty of sweet, ripe red cherry and sugary, creamy,vanilla.

I have a number of friends and acquaintances that really enjoy this style and think the 2012 Caymus is the absolutely awesome. Nothing wrong with that and more power to them. I’ve had it a few times at tastings or friends’ homes and it is a very, very, good example of this particular style, even if I would never choose to purchase a glass or bottle of it.

answer, also in your quote

So, if it’s not about the wine (i.e. the score, and its legitimacy), what is it about, brand building/selling wine? Independent analysis my arse. Telling people what they want to hear is more like it.

I haven’t tried it but I generally like an occasional cocktail wine and that is what this sounds like. And remember that this board probably accounts for less than one percent of all wine sold- I think the adage is 90% of all wine bought is consumed within 48 hours.

So they make it for the masses and sell something like 100,000 cases of it too. Again, not for everyone.

Spaces after commas please… newhere

I would love to see the numbers on this wine, especially the residual sugar. This wine is very noticeably off dry.

For the AFWE crowd, these kinds of wines can make for outstanding after-dinner ports.

And of course most folks who aren’t AFWE just love these kinds of wines at big social gatherings.

If you bring, say, a case of Caymus and a case of a Loire Cab Franc to the typical wedding reception [where SOHO NYC and Hipster Brooklyn are very atypical areas], and if folks are allowed to taste before they commit, then I can guarantee you which case will quickly empty and which case will still have 11 unopened bottles at the end of the night.

Doesn’t the 1L bottle add to the appeal? :wink:

Fixed

I didn’t care for it but most others at the table seemed to love it. I was really surprised with the high score it received. I was thinking more along the lines of the high 80s/low 90s when we tasted it.

That is a great point. I bet you are dead right!

The wine is a great example of what I would describe as “flabby.”

As others have mentioned, I find it bears no resemblance to the other wines of that vintage that have been mentioned with similar ratings.

A 96 for that wine reminds me of the Soviets giving perfect scores to one of their gymnasts after three falls in a routine - I can’t reconcile that wine’s quality with how it was rated.

As my wife said of it, “I would not drink that again if it was for free.”

(Pardon my iconoclasm. That wine hit my tastes in whatever the opposite is of a “wheelhouse.”)

All I’ll add is the 2012 makes the 2007 seem drinkable.

First few 07s we had we enjoyed but the last bottle we uncorked was just alcohol + sugar.

I thought it was just me when I saw parkers rating, I thought it was full fructose or somthing, had to spit it out, I dont get it
The 2010 caymus ss was very good though