Wannabe Wino

I picked this bottle of 2003 Fritz Cabernet Sauvignon from our collection to pair with a dinner of homemade tomato sauce and ravioli. It cost us $30, is 13.9% alcohol by volume and is sealed with a real cork. We picked this one up from Fritz this summer and I have one more bottle still in the racks.

Now I've recently been worried that perhaps our wine has been cooked over this winter by the heat in our apartment. As hard as I try, it's very difficult to regulate the temperature in an apartment building that insists on keeping the heat on even when it's 70 out. I try my best and have been freezing my tush off sleeping with out window in the bedroom open even when it's 20 or below out. However, my fears have been put to rest over the past few days as we have had bottle after bottle that has been perfect. I'm now more inclined to believe that it may have simply been a case that got cooked in shipping, which actually makes sense to me now that I have pulled UPS records. One of our cases arrived suspiciously late compared to the others, despite the fact that all 14 were shipped on the same day. I can't say for sure that all the wines I've been "eh" about lately came from that box, but if I were a betting woman....

Back to the wine. On the nose, I got dark fruit aromas, possibly black currants. Later, I could detect blackberry. Then layers of leather and a spice I can't identify, plus something that smells like a spicy tree or plant, but isn't oaky or woody or cedar or vegetal. (Could I be more vague?)

In the mouth I found black currants. After a while some oak and spices showed through. Overall, this wine was incredibly smooth in the mouth, I would even call it silky after airing for a while. The wine is drinking very well right now, though I will be curious to see how the next bottle drinks. This time I will be more careful about actually saving the second bottle, though really, I could drink it now and be perfectly happy with it.