Cheap Tannins

Tannat is an uncommon grape best known from a region of France called Madiran. It is renowned to produce tannic, long lived wines, that, of interest to me, do not cost a fortune. They are not for everyone as they are not what most people call enjoyable, plush easy drinking wines. The Don Pascual Tannat Reserve 2005 is from Uruguay, a country where the grape is being used to success - it is now identifed with Uruguay like Cahor's Malbec is identified with Argentina. It is a black inky effort that draws a fine line between good and okay - it certainly feels full bodied on the palate with robust tannins but what brings it down is that tinge of what I call "bubble gum" - hard to describe but makes the wine feel "cheap"(I usually get this bubble gum taste in home-made wines or "tanker" depanneur wines...). Anyway, for the record, it is a fairly cheap wine at $14 so I guess in this case, you get what you pay for!!

Go Holland! - hopefully they will play better than England did today.

Cheers!