Budget Wine: Jellybean Cabernet Sauvignon Pays D’Oc 2011

jellybeanThe French get their wine reputation from the storied vineyards of Bordeaux and Burgundy, but they make their money in southern France where they can make confected, generic wines for a mass market with the best of them. This was vinted and bottled in France for the U.S company Jellybean and aimed at wine drinkers just getting their training wheels.

Black cherry cordial on the nose , very ripe fruit, but with a hint of earth that suggests it speaks with a French accent. Cherries encased with chocolate on the palate, with faint wood notes in the background, full-bodied and round with a glycerin texture, a short but drying finish and a mineral seam giving it a little punch in the finale. No doubt this is ripe,  innocuously smooth,  too sweet,  and designed to be a crowd pleaser. I didn’t want to like it, I really didn’t, but it deserves credit for hitting its target, even though its target is not me.

Drink while listening to some frothy French Pop like Banda Magda’s Amour, t’es là?

Style: Smooth, sweet, easy-drinking

Score: 85

Price: $9

Alc: 14%

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