Wine Review

2003 Excelsior Cabernet Sauvignon (South Africa)

Here is a young, new world Cabernet Sauvignon to look out for. I paid 7 bucks for this South African wine and I was impressed. It’s a “drink now” wine. Despite my general opinion that Cabs, even lower end early drinkers, are not very food friendly, this wine would match up with tons of dishes. In fact, I had half the bottle the next day, with a pasta in a sauce of white wine and serrano chiles (lots of chiles). The wine still tasted great.

The Excelsior 2003 Cab comes fit with a synthetic cork so no need to even lay it down if you are doing some short term cellaring. Its color was a dark plummy purple. Complex grapey aromas mixed with blueberry cream and a slight touch of petroleum jelly. Almost Shiraz like. The flavors showed a lot of dark fruit with just a touch of oak. So many cabs in this price range are slathered in oak.

I had this over two nights. On the second night, the fruit was toned down and the wine was delicious but slightly flabby in that the acids and tannin were gone.

90 Points! and an A+ for QPR (Quality to Price Ratio)

www.excelsior.co.za

Enjoy,

Jason