The Desert Wine Guy - 2012 Columbia Crest H3 Cabernet Sauvignon

2012 Columbia Crest H3 Cabernet Sauvignon

I'm sure we have all read review after review about a certain wine claiming how great it is only to try that wine and completely dislike it. That folks is indeed what happened to me with this particular wine. The wine that is in discussion here is the 2012 Columbia Crest H3 (Horse Heaven Hills) Cabernet Sauvignon. It seems that everywhere you look you see reviews that this particular wine is amazing, fascinating, incredible, value alert and the accolades go on and on. Having now reviewed this wine, all of this has really made me question some of the validity of some of those reviewers. While there are a fair share of non professional reviewers who see nothing special about this wine for the most part this wine is being pushed....hard. I'm sorry but I just don't know how else to explain the fact that I myself have spoken to people and have had them comment online and agree with me in saying that the wine was simply....O.K, nothing special and that's it. Now, I want to add by the way that Columbia Crest DOES make another 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon and for the same price, that is the Grand Estates. I actually did a nice review of that particular wine

Map Of Horse Heaven AVA

(http://desertwineguy.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-desert-wine-guy-2012-columbia-crest.html) in which I rated the wine at 91 points. By the way the same people who love the H3 and rate it great also rate the Grand Estates great, I think that is rather funny. I am really putting myself out there on this one. Today I am going against the grain big time with this review. When I bought this wine It was originally for a giveaway on my wine Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/DesertWineGuy) for a lucky fan. I had read all the reviews and thought this would be something nice that my fans would love to win. While I was in the middle of the review I realized that I wouldn't give this wine away to anyone for anything, I had a problem now. While doing my review of the other Columbia Crest Grand Estates Cabernet is when I finally decided to give that wine away instead.  Well anyway let's go ahead and get started on this review on a very uninspiring wine.

Horse Heaven WInery

     So...lets see here, where do I begin? To begin with the 2012 Columbia Crest H3 Cabernet Sauvignon  sells for around $10 almost everywhere. This wine is made up of 94% Cabernet, 4% Merlot and 2% Syrah with an Alcohol level listed at 14%. Columbia Crest was founded in 1983 in the Washington State Columbia Valley which is the largest growing region in that state. The Horse Heaven area is also actually an AVA in Washington State. The winery hit the news big time when a very popular wine magazine named their 2005 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon "Wine of The Year". Now here they are with the release of our review wine.

Inside The Columbia Crest Winery

    So here we go. In the glass the wine sat a medium Strawberry in color. I thought this was interesting but I figured lets continue and see if the other pre-tasteing notes look improved. On the nose this wine was peppery and loaded with Black Cherry and Cocoa. Not too bad a start for the wine I figured so on we go. In my mouth the wine was of heavy Blackberry edging towards an almost bitterness with notes of  Prune. This was followed by a deep Black Cherry and Cranberry. I have to tell you this wine was VERY fruit forward and there were things that didn't quite fit correctly, the wine tasted disjointed and lacking that certain something that would justify good ratings let alone great ratings. From what I was tasting to this point the wine was so so at best. While continuing to taste the wine I couldn't help but notice that there was slightly bitter / tart notes present. Yes there was a sort of smokiness combined with pepper and Cassis but the wine was still what I could only describe as almost having a sort of sweetness to it. This wine completely put me off. All the notes except for the Black Cherry and Plum were just over the top and those two were very close to falling into that category. I kept this wine opened while I sampled it for about 2 hours and it did not open up or change in the slightest bit. Looking at my notes I see that I actually put a couple of notes down twice which I do only when they keep showing themselves in a bad way. These two notes I am referring to are "prunish" and "Tart Cranberry". These two notes stood out clearly and in a very harsh, disruptive way.
   That's it everyone, that is my opinion like it or not of the 2012 Columbia Crest H3 Cabernet Sauvignon. I realize that I have gone the complete opposite direction of the overwhelming majority of reviewers. I realize that I am going to stand out here but as the old saying goes, I call um like I see um. You might feel differently about this wine but like I always say, if your tastes usually align with mine than I would stay away from this wine. There are plenty of wines that cost the same if not less that blow this out of the water. Do yourself a favor ans stay away from this wine folks, you won't regret following my recommendation. On The Desert Wine Guy Rating Scale I put this wine at 85 points.





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