Fog Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon 2023

I do not like Cabernet Sauvignon. That's strong, perhaps I just don't love Cabernet Sauvignon. It gets a lot of love from a lot of people (it's the most widely planted grape on Earth), but we've never seen eye to eye. To me, perhaps naively, it's a big, astringent blackcurrant wallop without much character to fall in love with. This Cab Sauv from Fog Mountain was no different.

To challenge this prejudice, I wanted to find a varietal Cabernet Sauvignon to try. I reasoned that if I still didn't enjoy a Cab when nothing fancy was going on, then it really was a relationship that wasn't meant to be. When I found this bottle from Fog Mountain in Symposium Wine Emporium, it felt like a good time to tackle the beast head-on. It's not a pure varietal, but at 95% Cabernet Sauvignon, it was as close as I was going to get.

In the glass

Full in colour, it starts as it intends to go on. Immediate blackcurrant on the nose, no surprises there. At least there was a pleasant brambliness to the aromas, alongside something faintly floral and a light spicing from the oak.

Firm tannins in the mouth, and the blackcurrant is front and centre. The surprise, if there was to be one, is the greenness. It tastes youthful and vibrant; the acidity is refreshing and does help balance the astringency. There's a medium finish, but it's mostly some of the more herbaceous tones that hang on until the end. Ultimately, it tastes like a Cab Sauv, and it should, it is one.

My wife and I were slightly too eager to dive into this one, but even after decanting it and leaving it for an hour, the tannins only rounded marginally. It still felt a little too much like licking tree bark for my liking.

Worth it?

As you can see from the score, I've forced myself to stick to the WSET approach to tasting: the balance holds, the fruit carries, and on pure technical merit, it does what a Cabernet is supposed to do. Someone who actually enjoys this grape will likely think it's a perfectly fine bottle.

Will I ever buy it again? Absolutely not. But I consider twenty quid a fair price to pay just to prove to myself that I was right all along.