Castle Rock Cabernet Sauvignon 2005, Paso Robles

It's never a bad idea when buying wine to ask more from the label than "California."  Now wait, I love California wine; I'm just saying that you should look for more geographic specificity on the label.  For example, Lodi, Rockpile, Mendocino County, Carneros, Santa Barbara County — or in this case — Paso Robles.  An appellation, i.e. a geographic designation, tells you that such and such a percentage of the wine actually originated from the area cited on the label.  The more specific the appellation, the smaller the plot of land that the grapes you're drinking came from. To me, a narrow appellation means a concentration of flavors in the wine.  A concentration of flavors lends to wine a personality.  Bottom line, if the Wine Thrift has to choose between a $7.99 bottle of wine from "California" and an $8.99 bottle of wine from e.g. "Paso Robles", the Wine Thrift is going with Paso.

I've spent some time in Paso Robles, not "spent time," like a year or two in California's man colony, just visited family.  Paso Robles is located in California's Central Coast, about half of the way between LA and San Fran.  If anything, Paso is reputed to have great zinfandel.  And while true, tying Paso to zinfandel sells short so much other good wine coming out of the Central Coast.  There's plenty of good grenache, shiraz, muscat, and cabernet sauvignon coming out of Paso as well.

The Castle Rock 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon notes on its label that is from Paso Robles.  My wife purchased it at the Brentwood, MO Trader Joe's for what couldn't have been more than $9.

I cut metal to find a real cork, which I like, always like, very welcome.  Smell of wine actually hit me instantly.  This is uncommon but I took it to be a good sign.

Proceeded to pour.  Found a soft, quite velvety not-too-dark wine ready with strawberry and cocoa flavors.  Not a shitty wine at all.  Could have lived another year or two in the bottle and still been plenty good, probably better.

You never know with a bottle like this but if the vintner is willing to narrow down the appellation your chances of picking a nice bottle — and one that can age a tad — increase.

Paso wines don't mess around.  I was tasting in Paso once and this guy from "S'noma" is in there with his wife asking me where I'm from and telling me where he's from.  He's saying "S'noma" like a Texan from NorCal and I'm thinking, "What did he say?  Where?"  I nodded, not knowing, only hearing him later.

And he says the Sonoma wines have more body, more character.  And I'm like, "Then why the hell are you putting two cases on your credit card?"  D bag.

That's my Paso experience.  They don't put out much Cab in Paso but that's a sort of mystery to me, especially after tasting this Castle Rock.

It is a full wine, 13.8% a.b.v., purple in taste and color.  A good I'm home tonight and tomorrow I don't have to do anything so I think I'll just sit and listen to the crickets kind of wine.

This wine receives a Wine Thrift score of 84.

The Wine Thrift scoring system weights quality and price equally.  That is to say, a wine can earn 50 possible quality points and 50 possible price points.