Menage A Trois Silk [Blend]
For a wine whose core product has always been something of a
smooth nature to begin with, to come out with something smoother instantly
invokes images of something dreamier and luscious…which also already sort of
describes the main wine. Still, nothing exceeds like excess, one supposes and
perhaps this one will be different from a lot of the other blends that seem
nothing so much as ways to move more bottles…of course, by now you undoubtedly
know to expect more from this column, so that this wine is showing up here
should give a strong indication that they have created something worthy
here…definitely this is one of the wineries that I hold a certain amount of
trust for and probably drink more of this than any other single name on the
list.
So, with my frank feeling going in that this was an
unnecessary wine, sort of like their MAT Midnight (which will not be appearing
in this list), it had a lot of ground to make up, but to its credit, it did
just that. The blend here is Malbec, Petite Syrah and Pinot Noir, with the
largest percentage from the last grape, so definitely a good capacity here for
smoothness, without question. The Pinot Noir can be temperamental, though, so
some skill definitely would come into play and that blend is somewhat unusual,
given those players.
Happily, it all meshes together pretty nicely. This is a
lighter, poppier version, in some respects, even as far as color, of the
flagship blend and while I wouldn’t say it improves on the original (be very
hard to do that), it does do a respectable job of holding its own. I think more
than any other word, “elegant” comes to mind to describe this, which at least
does somewhat connotate that one will find it in more favor, depending on mood,
but it’s good to have wines to fit that need. As much as I expected it, they
wisely did not lean much on the sweet side here, but elements of cherry and
raspberry make their presence known on the tongue. All in all, this is a very
enjoyable wine.
To be honest, though, given how much I like the original, I
probably wouldn’t look to this unless I was either in one of those rare moods
at the same time I was in a wine store or liquor outlet or unless they were out
of the main wine. I’ve never seen it on SPA and it doesn’t qualify for a
Standard, so Mixed it is, though admittedly, a very strong Mixed…
