Today I will be taking a look at the 2021 Lobo, Cabernet Sauvignon - Uliff Vineyards. I bought two bottles of this particular wine at $29.99 a piece. The wine comes in at 14.2% alcohol and the bottle is cork sealed. The grapes for this wine are all estate grown by the Wulff family in the Napa Valley AVA of the Oak Knoll District and the winemaker is Victoria Coleman. The wine is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon.
So, let's talk label now guys as I always do at this point in a review. Guys, this is not really a label, it is more of embossed masterpiece and it is just awesome. The dark wine inside really sets everything on the label (?) off with the gold design and lettering really going over the top to impress. Now, I don't normally talk about the back label but the winery seems to have put the same effort into this area that it put into the front label which is not too common.. The same embossing used on the front label is duplicated here on the back and overall, it is amazing.
Now for the nose of the wine. Immediately when I opened the bottle and even prior to pouring it, a note of luscious dark black fruit rushed out of the bottle. A note of what smells as if will be brooding, blackberry & black cherry notes came rushing out of my glass after the wine was poured and they were very inviting for sure. Overall the wines smells fresh, exciting and lively, I hope this can all translate over to the palate in a great way but let's find out.
So, opening up here I can straight out tell you that there are some grippy tannins in the wine. These tannins most definitely need some time to calm down a bit as they are rather on the abrasive side right now. Normally I love tannins in my Cabs however here they are also intermixing with a wine that is very high in acidity and that is a combination that needs to go smoothly, unfortunately, here the notes are clashing a bit and therefore early on I will suggest allowing this wine to sit for at least another two years, prior to drinking. I am getting an alcohol burn on the finish here and yeah, it stands out. While this burn does disappear at times, I found it also kept popping up at times as well and I thought that was not a good thing. I get black cherry here as well that incorporates very well with a fresh bit of blackberry. Together these two notes as on the nose, are super nice and are trying their best to help this wine in overcoming that high acidity/alcohol issue. The wine has a grip to it as it is a young wine that needs to settle a bit. This grip was not necessarily a bad thing but it could tone down just a bit. A lovely nice note of graphite is here as well (yummy) and it is right up there with the black fruit and grippiness in working good things into the wine. How about a note of licorice? How does that sound? Well guys, it is here and it is good. Some blueberry comes along and it is light without being sweet thankfully.
I am picking up a big time driness to the wine and that really works out well to an extent. Notice that I did say to an extent because that same driness intermixed with the acidity and after a bit it honestly... that didn't sit too well with me. The wine does have some nice things going for it but there were a couple of things that set me back in my seat with that driness being one of those things.There is a very nice note of underbrush as well here that really is picked up throughout the wine and brought a bit of a rustic note to the wine. Sort of hidden within the wine is a note of violets and it kind of took me just a bit to figure out exactly what I was tasting but once I did, I enjoyed it. This violet
is light yet seems to be able to find a way to be instrumental in the entirety of the
wine overall. As a last not, Black Plum is here as well and it is lush and juicy without being sweet as I have found this note can be at times. So there you have it folks, another wine review is in the books. I will see you in the next paragraph to give you my final conclusion.
As I close out this review I have to mention some negatives such as that alcohol burn as it seemed to last a decent amount of time and come and go throughout the tasting. I thought it was an unwelcome distraction to the tasting of the wine. Another drawback was the fact that the acidity was very high and distracting as well. The driness also effected the wine and in combination these three notes were enough to really cause me to perceive the wine in sort of a negative way. The fruit was indeed very nice and worked hard at uplifting the wine doing a decent job. In the end, I find myself undecided as to whether the wine is simply unbalanced or whether it will indeed settle down in a few years but I have to rate the wine at what it is now. What the wine is now is a full bodied wine that is all about itself. I certainly do not believe the wine deserves a 94 rating which would send the other bottle to my cellar so on The Desert Wine Guy rating scale, I am giving this wine 91 points.
The Desert Wine Guy
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