One of the things the HSC likes to do, one of the “tricks”,
I suppose, as it were, is to mine the various wineries of their other spoils,
meaning, of course, when we stumble or otherwise come upon a wine we find
favorable enough to add to the list, we then will sort of sort through and pick
up companion, sibling bottles, perhaps, in the rest of the line of a given
winery or vineyard. So, from the halls of Guy & Thierry, purveyors of one
of our favorite standby cooking Chardonnays, also from the Fat Bastard line, comes
this gem, which I spied on a random walk through the aisles of the wine store.
The “fat bastard” moniker is intended to reference the
“roundness” of the wine. “Roundness” refers to an aspect that could best be
described as a lack of astringency, the anti-astringency, perhaps. It typically
either refers to a full maturation or to tannins which are softer and less
abrasive in nature. For a casual sipping wine, this is quite ideal. However,
Cabs in general are big, bad bruisers and this one is definitely a Cab, so
there is a lot of boldness and smashing flavor and some tannins that are not
quite entirely tamed. What this means is a bit of hardness to offset the
largely silky and smooth nature of this wine, but not enough astringency to
either be assertive or disruptive.
Cabs can also tend to easily get clunky and heavy and though
this one didn’t, it wouldn’t really be a Cab if it didn’t at least approach it,
which this one did. I did find it a great testimony to the skill of the Fat
Bastard folks, though and while I’m not a huge Cab fan, if I felt the urge and
couldn’t find a bottle of Sean Minor, this, though not quite as tasty, would
definitely be a solid substitution.
All in all, though, this is more of a Mixed. I do see the
Chardonnay on SPA from time to time, but never this one. If I did, I may or may
not pick one up and I do like it well enough to buy it at a full price, whether
it was on SPA or not, but not enough for it to be the automatic of a Standard.
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