WTN: 1997 Rabbit Ridge Aventura

[hotle]

a few weeks ago, my local winemonger had a few bottles of rabbit ridge wines open. he'd been able to get some good deals from a distributor trying to lower stock. i happened to drop in between my son's baseball games and did some tasting, the result of which was me buying a case of this wine at $12/bottle, which was substantially lower than what he'd had it for retail a few weeks before ($25 or so, i believe). it's a blend of sangiovese, cab and merlot.

the first two bottles i opened were lovely.....very nice cherry/black cherry nose and palate, long legs, full mouth-feel and long on the finish. since i do love sangiovese, i was congratulating myself heartily on my purchase (wouldn't have bought at $25, but for 12 bucks, i thought this to be an excellent value). even in my first tasting, i was looking at this to be an every-day drinker, but was also looking forward to drinking it every day!

last night, i drank my third bottle. nice berry-fruit nose, soft tannins, a bit of chocolate on the palate. it tasted like (gasp) a $7 bottle of merlot, with somewhat more structure from the cab. it was as if the blending process had foregone the mixing of the sangiovese at all, which i'm sure wasn't the case. bottle variation sucks.

so, i guess i'd caution at buying this at retail price. it was still an 'ok' bottle, but i wouldn't have paid $12 for it. now, i'm hoping i find enough of the 'other' bottles to justify my overall purchase.

matt