Ahh the beautiful Florida weather. Yeah guys, the day off and chillin inside while the thunder & lightening put on a beautiful display outside. Florida weather is amazing for sure. While a lot of people don't enjoy rain and the weather elements that go with it, for me it is a beautiful but small display of what God can do. Coming from 35 years of living in the desert (hence The Desert Wine Guy) to a place that has rain, thunder & lightening, is a treat. I don't live in a flood area and hurricanes are really something that are happen where I am. As a matter of fact, we have lived here for seven years now and we haven't had one that really bothered us. If you guys are thinking of moving to Florida for the weather or for other reasons that I can't discuss on this platform, I advise you to do your due diligence and move to areas that very seldom receive severe weather but are still beautiful. 
Having said this, if I were drinking a white wine today I would be breaking out the laptop and the ice bucket and heading straight to the patio where the pool is in order to do this wine review but, that is not to be as tonight I have a red to talk about so let's get to it.
Today I will be taking a look at the 2023 BV Bonded Winery #71, Cabernet Sauvignon. I bought this wine from a site named Last Bottle and I paid $35 ($90 winery) for it. I actually bought three bottles of the wine because the Beaulieu Vineyard (BV) is one of my favorite Napa Valley wineries and I am hopeing the wine will be very nice which would leave two bottles (rated 94 & above) for the cellar. The bottle for this wine is cork sealed and also appears to be a real cork and not synthetic (nice). The wine comes in at 14.4% alcohol and the wine itself spent 6 months on 30% New French Oak. The grapes for this wine come from the Napa Valley in general and the wine is a small blend of 85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 4% Merlot, 4% Malbec, 4% Petite Sirah & 3% red other.
Label...yep, the label. Ladies & Gentleman, you can go ahead right now and laugh at me because on top of the wine coming from the BV winery, the label is what really had me fascinated or hooked. If there were ever a wine label that beckoned you to buy a wine, this would be that label. There I was on the Last Bottle website (https://lastbottlewines.com/) when I heard a "pssst" sound coming from my computer speakers. After a bit of searching, I realized that the webpage was talking to me, the advertisement was screaming. 
This screaming was followed by another voice that said "buy me". Well folks, when an advertisement can speak to you like this one did, you have no choice but to listen so I bought three (3) bottles. The label itself screams class & pretentiousness...like loudly. Whomever designed this label has done an amazing job and deserves a raise. Super clean, super classy, super classic, this label rocks!
Appearance wise in my glass, the wine is on the medium side of things. Holding the wine above a white piece of paper I can see the paper fairly well through it. I am a little surprised as I expected to see a brooding in appearance wine but that was not to be.
Okay now for the nose of the wine. As I bring the glass too my nose get a medium notes of fresh blackberry as well as a sense of warm spice & tobacco leaf as well. Overall, nose wise, the wine smells rather nice.
On the palate now the wine instantly tells me what it is all about but I will hold off on what my gut is telling me for the time being. First off I will let you know that the wine cannot store for too long and in the review I will explain why. A medium blackberry note is offered up first thing and it is just as the nose portrayed it, fresh. Acidity here in the wine is pretty high and makes its presence known for sure. There is a sense of refinement to the wine that I enjoyed but overall I think this is an unusually light wine, an unusually light Cabernet Sauvignon. 
There is a bit off tobacco leaf and it is nice but the lightness of the wine still bothers me as it is holding the wine back overall. Tannins are rather soft and don't seem as if they will be around long or even amount to anything in the future. A black cherry note is here as well and it is simply just okay, it isn't something that I would write home about. There is a juiciness to the wine that I thought was pretty nice but overall, in the end this is a wine that is just simply decent and nothing more. Everything in the wine came together in a package that I would say is presented at a level that was just so so. While the wine starts off good it very quickly dropped off and the drinker is left to wonder what happened.
In the end, I am disappointed. the wine is very light and not a serious expression of the Cabernet Sauvignon varietal. Not only am I disappointed, I am also a bit let down as well. There is a hollowness of sorts to the wine and a softness and it really bothers me. Perhaps this is all my fault and I was simply expecting much more but whatever the reason, I am let down. In the end I guess $35 was an okay price price for the wine. I didn't expect the lack of depth the wine showed, the very short finish and the...overall...softness of the wine. I mentioned earlier that I didn't think the wine could cellar for long and that is because of the lack of depth, the softness of the tannins and the overall gentleness of the wine.
I do not believe this wine will do anything with time other than go down hill. Guys, I have stated earlier that I love BV wines but here I am going to have to break with that love and give some hard truth. Try as I might, I just can't say that the wine is impressive. On The Desert Wine Guy rating scale, I am giving this wine 91 points. while this is a decently enjoyable wine it really falls short in the end, this is not a serious Cabernet Sauvignon.
The Desert Wine Guy
