Friday, January 16, 2009

E&J Gallo Barrelli Creek Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2000

The good news: this is a great value cab at $22. Classic cab flavour in a perfectly balanced wine. The bad news: it's all gone. Which is to say Kelly and I tried a bottle last night and we liked it so much that we went right back up to Prospect St and bought the last case. I've been trying to avoid bulk buying - with the blog going I want to try as many wines as possible. But for everyday drinking it's great to have a reasonably priced wine that is truly enjoyable rather than just drinkable.

Wine Spectator gave this an 86 when they tasted it in 2003. That's not a bad score, but I feel pretty confident that it's better than that now. It seems to have aged well - one more reason to try a wine rather than rely on WS.

This wine was on sale - it had a yellow sticker - but I'm not sure about the original price. I vaguely recall that it was about $35+. It wouldn't have been great value at that price, but it is at $22.

Price: $22
Value: 4/5
Score: 88
Region: USA, California
Grape: Cabernet Sauvignon
Tasted: Jan 2009
UPC: No longer available

1 comment:

  1. We had another bottle of this last night, and we liked it even better this time - we put it more in the 90-91 range. Yes, it's all sold out, but this is a good lesson as to what time can do for Gallo's mid-range cab. I hadn't realized it when I worth the initial review, but WS gave this wine a 75(!) referring to “an earthy wet cardboard flavor.” Clearly they had a flawed bottle.

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