Cabernet Day 2011

Whatcha havin for the second annual Cabernet Day??
2006 Herb Lamb Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon: Blackberry and spice on the nose. Deep garnet with heavy legs. Silky mouthfeel. Beautifully constructed old world style cab with deep dark fruits, spices including hints of cinnamon, excellent acidity and matching tannins that are integrating more and more as the wine breathes. Finish is at least 60 seconds and getting longer. Should have decanted, but couldn’t wait. Screams for a Filet Mignon. Excellent. edit: (After another 30 minutes open, the fruit and spice are really showing, where the hell is my steak?)

2006 Ghost Horse Shadow: Lots of spice on the nose. Opaque with deep garnet edges and legs that just stay attached to the glass. New world style wine with heavy viscosity. Sweet black currant with kitchen spice, ample acidity and integrated tannins. Absolutely mouth coating with dark fruits prevalent for 45 seconds on the finish which dries to spicy blackberry for another 15 seconds. This one will take on BBQ and anything with heavy sauces. Excellent.

Shit!!! I didn’t know about Cabernet Day!! Maybe I will finally try an 05 Ovid, but it will have to wait until the weekend.

Guess everybody forgot and drank a Burgundy.

Crozes Hermitage

Leave it to you to miss the important days and dates.

I drank a Carneros Syrah that thought it was Napa Cab.

I had an 05 Match Baconbrook Cab. Yum!!!

Nice Corks!

Ummm I forgot I said I would open a 05 Ovid. Oh well for another time. My belated Cab Day addition is the 2008 Château Boswell Cabernet Sauvignon Jacquelynn Beckstoffer To-Kalon Vineyard. My first Boswell wine! Initial taste on pop and pour - Amazing nose and delicious fruits!! I am going to have another Stella before trying anymore wine. I will post a note either tonight or tomorrow. PS the carboy in the background is my freshly fermenting apple cider. It took me the better part of four hours to juice my apples in order to come up with 11.5 litres!! I will post a thread on this in the spirits forum.

Looking forward to the notes. A friend of ours just went to work for Chateau Boswell.

Well, I screwed up.

I opened a 2005 Nicolas Cole Camille that is only 26% Cab, the rest Merlot, Cab Franc, and a dab of Petite Verdot. It was a lush, fruit packed, medium oaked wine with just enough lingering structure to match it with grilled NY strip.

Guess where I got it.

P Hickner

I can’t believe the members of this board could miss such an important date. C’mon, we spend the rest of the year inventing reasons, off-lines, whatcha drinkin threads, threads dedicated to specific wines, etc., just so we can enjoy wine and camaraderie. They finally give us a dedicated day for Cabernet and everybody drank beer?

FAIL

Guilty as charged. Book me in with those hot chicks!

IMO this is terrible timing. In this part of the country (and in much of the country really) September tends to come in with the weather still pretty hot. This year that was certainly the case. It was 101 here on Thursday and the last thing I felt like drinking was a cabernet. Push this back one month and you get more traction in my book. Two months, maybe even better.

Maybe it should have been Viognier day!!!

Never heard of Cab day, but we opened a 2006 Mount George (bought from Carrie and Randy, thanks!) and it is wonderful. I’ll post a full TN later, but it’s smooth, elegant, balanced, tannins completely integrated. Great wine.

Michael,
According to Bakas Media there were 4.5 million people worldwide that participated, most on twitter or facebook. There were actual events all over, small, large & in between. I believe there were 17k tweets on Cab Day alone about it.
It may not have been the ideal timing for it but there were sure plenty of people & wineries that participated.
I think the next worldwide virtual event is riesling

For me the combo of it feeling so marketing-driven and it being for the ‘king of grapes’ made me not want to participate. I tweeted ‘why does cab need a day, shouldn’t it be some underloved grape like gewürztraminer?’ No one responded so I guess they were not amused, or just too caught up in the marketing feeding frenzy.

It seems well liked then. Though, as Alan points out, Cabernet (sauvignon at least) hardly suffers for lack of publicity. In any case, I just don’t enjoy cabernet sauvignon when its hot. I can understand the idea of big red wines with grilled steaks or burgers, but I’d rather have a beer, a cocktail, or a white/rose wine. For me, I look forward to fall as the time when I can really start to enjoy red wine again. Summer has lots going for it, but pairing with red wine is not one of them, IMO. And while September 1 may symbolically seem like autumn, or like a transition, all too often it will be hot in much of the US. Oh, and if the next one is riesling, they should have swapped.

To quote Ron Burgundy. “Its so damn hot. Milk was a bad choice.”

Randy, just so we are clear, every day is Cabernet day around here, and we don’t need no stinkin’ # in front of it either!