Tasting - Winking Owl Cab Sav

Name: Winking Owl

Variety: Cabernet Sauvignon

Region: California

Country: United States

Year: 2015?

Price: $2.19!

Winery Review: The color is cherry red in the center and it gets progressively lighter as it reaches the sides of the glass. The nose is strawberry fruit roll-ups, spearmint chewing gum and a very faint whiff of baking brownies. A very soft wine, there are no hard edges here. It starts off with strawberry and then blueberry, followed by a little non fizzy cola. There is a hint of chocolate and vanilla on the mid palate, with a late dash of sour cranberry. There really isn't a finish, the main body of the wine goes on for a while and then abruptly ends.

My Review: Now that Oklahoma allows retail stores to sell wine, there are tons and tons of options all over the place. It's really quite exciting. I was wandering the isles of Aldi and found this bottle for $2.19! That's right...a whole bottle for less than $3! I had to give it a try. Since my favorite wine is Cab Sav, I naturally chose this one. The label is quite cutesy, but doesn't give a lot of information. It just gives California as the "region" and doesn't actually have a year on it. I guessed 2015 because that's the copywrite on the label, but honestly I have no idea. The review I found was correct in that the color is pretty light. Not what I was expecting from a Cab Sav. The smell is very strawberry and maybe a little mulberry. It doesn't have a sour note at all. I could detect a bit of spice on the end, but it was overwhelmingly sweet. The taste almost identically matched how it smelled. SWEET!!!! This was not a Cab Sav. It was closer to a merlot or maybe even a sweet table wine blend. Strawberry on strawberry on strawberry. I will say it was more tannic on the finish than a sweet wine, but the start was WHOA! I didn't try this with food because I was afraid that anything I ate would make it more sweet and I wasn't sure I could handle that. All in all, it wasn't a bad wine. It was sweeter than I like them, but for something to drink on it's own, it was pretty good. I definitely wouldn't match this with food at all. Maybe something sweet will tone it down, but I wasn't willing to try it out. For now i'll be happy to just sip this as I do my wine homework. I have been begging my husband to build me a wine cellar and I think I have found the wine to fill it up with ! At $2.19 a bottle I might actually be able to fill it to the brim :) In all seriousness, I will buy more of this. For stupid cheap wine, I can appreciate it for what it is and enjoy the fact I'm not drinking my pay check away.