Morgante and Vergelegen

[bills]

2002 Vergelegen Mill race Merlot Cabernet – this Cape wine shows good fruit and a nice weight ion the mouth, and while it has some soft tannin, it drinks well now. I think it will continue to drink for 3 or 4 years, and the price is a bargain. Second night, no significant change. Why was I trying it over two nights? Well might you ask! Normally a bottle opened is a bottle dedicated to the wine Gods that very night (with yours truly revipient of the libation) – rarely do I taste again the next night, because rarely is there anything left to taste. But in this case, I opened two bottles at once. I was faced with a serious dilemma – either drink both bottles in the same night and have SWMBO label me a p**stank, or spread them over two nights and receive (relative) silence from the distaff side. Come on, you’d have done the same thing! Besides, I wanted to taste them against each other to decide which, if any, I wished to buy.

2003 Morgante Nero d’Avola – 100% varietal from Sicily, and IGT wine. Raspberry, cinnamon and elastoplast in the nose, and quite big in the mouth, full bodied with berries and long and warm. Second night, much the same, although the cinnamon was reduced and the bandage element was absent. Similar time frame for this one.

I think both of these wines are QPR winners, at $19 and $22, which means that in the States they are probably about $1.85 a bottle! The decision? Easy – a half case of each!

[jparrott]

Nice note on the Vergelegen. Their sauvignon blanc (at ~$20-25) is a real step up from most everything else out there from the Cape. Sappy, nervy, long, and even a bit ageworthy, a real tour de force from a distinctive terroir.

Disclosure: I don't sell it.

[Phil Ward]

<<2002 Vergelegen Mill race Merlot Cabernet >>

About $17.00 per bottle in New Jersey.

Phil