Every Thursday I feature a wine I particularly enjoy, whether it’s something new and different, is a great value, or from a producer worth checking out. For this week, my Wine Of The Week is the Sherman & Hooker’s Shebang Sixth Cuvée.
I picked up this wine when I went to K&L Wine Merchants for a tasting last week. It’s been on my radar for a couple of years, but I’ve just now gotten around to it. Here’s what K&L says about it…
Shebang is a project of Bedrock Wine Co.’s Morgan Twain-Peterson, who happens to be one of only 30 Masters of Wine in the United States and son of Ravenswood founder Joel Peterson. While Bedrock’s focus is on small-lot, single-vineyard expressions, Shebang is an exuberantly juicy, multi-vintage red blend with a lot of pedigree as well. The Sixth Cuvée is designated as an Old Vine Cuvée for the first time, as 92% of the fruit was sourced from vines more than 90 years old. This includes some declassified fruit from the 100+ year old Bedrock vineyard in Sonoma Valley, as well as other particularly fine old vineyard discoveries. The blend of the Sixth Cuvée is 60% Zinfandel with a primary balance of Carignan, Alicante Bouchet, Syrah, and other assorted old vine, field blend grapes. The wine was fermented on native yeasts, aged in French oak (15% new), and entirely made with the same attention that is given to Bedrock’s wines.
The wine was named after the two Civil War generals who founded Bedrock Vineyard in 1854. SRP = $11.99; 14.2% alcohol; 7,500 cases produced
My tasting notes follow:
Inky nearly opaque color with promising candied red fruit and a bit of pepper aromas. On the palate, it’s medium-bodied, and approaches off-dry, with soft tannins, and pleasing black cherry, black raspberry, baked blackberry and spice flavors. Medium finish.
Rating: B+; Killer value, and easily the best multi-vintage wine I’ve had! This is a wine I’ll be buy (much) more of, and you should too!
Pair with: Pulled pork sandwich, spaghetti, or pizza
Sample purchased for review
Ratings Key:
(A) – 94-97/Outstanding
(A-) – 90-93/Excellent
(B+) – 86-89/Very good
(B) – 80-85/Good
(C) – 70-79/Bleh
(D) – 50-69/#Fail
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Martin Redmond is a Financial Executive by day, and a certified wine geek with latent foodie tendencies the rest of the time. In addition to the wine lifestyle and food he enjoys family, fitness and traveling. He likes to get thoughts of wine off his mind by sharing experiences on his ENOFYLZ Wine blog, which features wine reviews, wine country travel, and wine and food pairings.
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