Final Update! February Virtual Tasting - Hedges CMS Red 2008

This month’s Virtual Tasting is tonight from 7-9pm! The wine is the 2008 Hedges CMS Red. This wine is widely available in retail and grocery stores and costs $12.

What you need to do to participate is:

1. Buy this month’s wine from a local retailer or from the winery

2. Post your comments/tweets on the wine tonight between 7 and 9pm. Comments can be as long or short as you want (my personal favorite comment ever was “Blech!”). A good place to start is, did you like the win
e or not? Not sure? Think about whether you would buy it again. For those on Twitter, follow me @wawinereport. I will be using the hashtag #WAwine during the event.

Look for regular updates to this post and comments from virtual tasters starting at 7pm tonight. Hope you'll join us.

7:15pm Update: And we're off!

First, let's start with some background about Hedges.

Hedges Family Estate is a family-run winery located in the Red Mountain AVA. Tom and Ann-Marie Hedges founded the winery in 1987. Peter Hedges, Tom’s brother, serves as winemaker and general manager. Hedges has two basic tiers of wine. The first is Hedges Family Estate wines. The second is the CMS wines. Tonight’s virtual tasting wine is the red wine from this series.

On to the wine.

7:30 Update: Popped and poured. Cork is synthetic. The wine is at 66 degrees. Put in the fridge for about 20 minutes before opening to get it down from 'room temperature.'

On the nose right off I get a fair amount of Syrah aromas which is surprising because the percentage is fairly low (more on this later). Also get a fair amount of berry. Fairly aromatic with a decent amount of barrel influence on the nose. On to the taste.

8:00 Update: Descriptions of the wine from the winery:

Dark purple in color with a nose of black cherry, cassis, with hints of tar, tobacco, and sweet vanilla toast. Black cherry and blackberry fruit continue on the palate with dried herbs and licorice. A nicely balanced wine with enough acidity and tannins to make this a more serious longer lived wine that pairs nicely with a wide array of foods.

About 63,000 cases produced.

8:25 Update: Lots of discussion going on on Twitter. Search on the hashtag #WAwine.

8:45 Update: Overall, I like the nose of the wine which is marked by berries, barrel notes, and a fair amount of Syrah aromas. Interestingly, the wine is only 6% Syrah (48% Merlot, 46% Cabernet). After the initial pour the nose becomes more muted. The taste starts off decently but then becomes fairly tart and thins out considerably, especially on the mid-palate. The nose and the palate don't seem connected. I would give this wine a dot in my rating system.

Final Update: As I mentioned earlier, lots of discussion on Twitter tonight so less updating of this post. Thanks to @DivaTink @Sturat @OR_Wine_Blog @mykrro @Shona425 @heyjenk @nwwineandre @rperro @yakyakwine @nectarwine @hardrow @WAwineman @vancdarkstar @WDWines @rexofoly @tarynmiller @HollyMHouse @KionaWine @boxboylover @lmheppner @texasgrapes for participating (apologies if I missed anybody). Search the hashtag #WAWine to see the winding and weaving thread. Thanks to those who left comments on the blog as well.

Some interesting tweets. One was about the low margin of producing wines at this price point. This wine lists for $12 and can frequently be found on sale for considerably less. After the cost of grapes, bottling, etc., how much do wineries make on wines in this category? This wine is at a high production for Washington, 63,000 cases, so the high volume offsets the low per bottle margin.

We also discussed how much everyone had paid for the wine. Prices were generally similar - about $10 to $12. One person noted having bought this for $12 listed on sale from $18 (I wrote about shenanigans like this recently).

Another discussion was around what one expects from wines at this price point - a decent daily drinker, something to serve in a party setting, something that makes a person want another glass. Personally, while I score wines independent of price, I always look for wines in the value category to match or exceed the price point. If it's an $8 wine, does it drink like an $8 wine or a $10 or $16 wine. There is a lot of competition at this price point so exceeding expectations is important.

Thanks to everyone who participated tonight. We'll do it all again next month.