Cabernet Sauvignon

The wine

Concentration is the miss. Black cherry, blackberry, and plum show up in a dark cluster that reads as Cabernet, and they never thicken. The glass stays dry. It does not stay packed.

The tannin is firm, and it is the structure you can hold. Grip arrives without the flesh that would make a Cabernet feel complete. Medium body is accurate, and it is light of what this grape is supposed to carry. The middle stays lean. Depth does not follow the fruit.

A second sip does not correct the first. The dark fruit stays in that same cluster, and the lean frame stays with it. The wine is easy to drink. It never finds the packed middle a Cabernet is for. Firm tannin keeps the glass from going soft, and it cannot supply depth that was never there.

At the close the dark fruit is still there, briefly. Dryness outlasts it. That lingering dryness is the finish, not a long trail of flavor. Balance is tannin and dryness over a lean middle, so the pour drinks as a sketch of Cabernet rather than the wine the grape usually is.

Seventy-eight. The character is decent. The body and the concentration the style should have are not in the glass.