HRM Rex Goliath Cabernet Sauvingnon

Wow... It's not even January 10th and already two posts on the wine blog! Not too shabby for a beer guy with a pregnant wife, eh?

But enough chit-chat; let's get on to the wine! I have a good friend at work who's teaching me about wine as I teach her about beer. Yeah, it's a pretty good gig. Anyway, right before Christmas she brought in this bottle with a rooster on it. She told me it's an awesome table wine and it usually clocks in below ten bucks. Now that's my kind of wine! And best of all, she gave me the bottle. Like I said, it's a good gig.

So today Leah made some pasta and meat sauce (or "linguini bolognese" if we want to sound fancy) and decided to bust out this bottle of HRM Rex Goliath Cabernet Sauvingnon. It poured a very dark ruby color. It smelled meaty, by which I mean not overly floral or fruity. For whatever reason, the nose told me this was going to be a hearty wine.

Turns out my nose was right... This was a pretty complex wine, especially for the price. The initial sweetness that hits your tongue is muted by an oaky dryness mixed with some tannins. You get the taste of stone fruit in the middle, but it quickly dissolves into notes of black pepper and a finish dry from tannins and alcohol. Leah quickly noted that it's a good thing we had this with a hearty meat sauce, as it likely would've overpowered lighter fare. (And on a side note, yes, my pregnant wife had a half glass of wine with dinner; the baby will be just fine.)

Overall, this wine definitely stood out and I'll be sure to seek out the other offerings from this winery, especially when there's nothing on sale that grabs my eye. If this were a $15 wine, I'd probably wait to find it on sale, but at $8 a pop, this qualifies as a buy it again on the patented Chibebräu Wine scale (skip it, only if it's on sale, or buy it again). Thanks for the bottle, Puja!