I’ve not had this wine before or anything from Austin Hope for that matter. I don’t really see the producer in my local stores. A friend had gifted this to me for my birthday last month.
My wife and I were having dinner at CR’s restaurant in Hampton, NH last night with another couple. I noticed right before we left that they had a corkage policy so I grabbed this bottle of 2018 Austin Hope Reserve Cabernet. I was engaged in conversation so I didn’t take notes but this was a wow bottle. Great aromatics and laser focused fruit. Definitely something I will seek out in the future.
Interesting! Ive never tried the reserve but ive been served the regular bottling before, and it was definitely not laser focused. Pretty big/flabby/oaky/sweet actually.
Thanks for the note!
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The regular bottling is a pretty generic, overripe and over-oaked mess. You can find it at many Costco stores. We visited their winery (not my choice) and some of the wines you wouldn’t find at Costco were pretty good. I didn’t have their Reserve cab, but I remember thinking a few of their wines exceeded expectations including a pretty good Malbec.
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I too find their regular bottling unbearably sweet. I’ll keep an eye out for the reserve.
That would be a good description of the regular bottle Rich.
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If you like sweet wines the regular bottle is a perfect fit. Price is silly high though when you can get much cheaper sweet reds around $15 that are about as good. I always find Chateau Ste. Michelle a perfect sub out for $13 a bottle.
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Never had the reserve (actually, didn’t know that it existed). So, I clicked over to CellarTracker to see what others thought, and the 2018 gets some good review scores (avg: 96.2). In fact, one person liked it some much that he/she gave it 100 points. Twice. On the same day.
Trust me not many bigger supporters for cellar tracker than me but these types of wines I take the average score with a grain of salt. Not much in the way of descriptors for any of them and the person with two 100’s has 5 tasting notes.
St. Michelle is one of the few wineries where I prefer the cheaper bottles. I like them better than their $40+ bottles which I generally find to be over oaked for my taste.
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