Recipe Repository

Remember in high school when you used pre-published “notes” on classical literature to get you through your exams and term paper assignments? The marketing team at the Familia Zuccardi vineyard must have taken a cue from those commercially available crib sheets, based on the information printed on their wine bottle labels. Their 2006 Cab has “Tasting Notes” as well as “Serving Suggestions” printed on the back of the bottle. While the wine snob in me objects to taking dictation from what the vineyard says their wine tastes like, I can appreciate this approach as advantageous for consumers who want to learn more about wine and don’t speak in “wine reviewer” code.

Fortunately for us, the “Cliff’s Notes” on the bottle were reasonably accurate. Certainly there are “Black cherries and currant flavors” and “a touch of plum and spices at the end”. The one observation I’d add is that the fruit here is not sugary sweet. The dry finish compliments the first taste of fruit, and this went down entirely too smoothly. I have no record of exactly what we paid for this bottle, but it must have been less than $20. A good buy.