VinDivine

Hey you big burly Cab, you. Yeah, I’m talkin’ to you. So I’ve taken recently to equating wines to people. Well, not really people per se. Celebrities. (They’re not like us, see?).

So when I got ready to pop the top on the Burly 2005 Cab, I riddled myself – will this Burly Cab be like Hugh Jackman or more like Jeff Bridges burly? No, not Hugh J in Wolverine, more like the suave, refined Hugh when he MC’d the Grammys. And not like Jeff Bridges in Crazy H…wait. Yes, basically like Jeff Bridges in everything, be in Crazy Heart or The Big Lebowski. A little rough around the edges. Feel me? Two big burly dudes but with starkly different personas. Why do I do shit like this? ‘Cuz I just can’t make things simple, that’s why. Don’t be a hater.

So let’s just get to the bottom of this quandary, shall we? Yes. A can smell your anticipation. Let’s give this Wine Spectator 92-rated bad boy a ride!

So first off, the bottle is pretty f”ng burly, bitches. Must weigh in at a good 5 lbs or so. And I mean after I’ve swilled all the liquid down my gullet. The empty bottle, to be precise. Could be used as a blunt instrument, that’s fo sho.

As for the nose? Well, the nose knows. Whatever. And lemme tell ya, a sniff of Burly is like getting a 5-banger in the shnotbox, if ya get my drift. If ya don’t that means like getting punched in the nose, kittens. Bam. The aroma is in your face fruity. Not sissy, all brambly blackberry and raspberry. Me likee. The taste? Well, here’s where it gets interesting. Well, at least I think so.

So, I enjoyed a continuation of the aroma, with flavors of dark, ripe fruit and nice tannins – not too tight for such a young burly cab. This helped provide this vino a nice, rich mouth feel. There’s also a very faint oakiness. Less than I would have thought. And it felt like it had an alcohol level greater than the 14.5%  listed on the label. Bonus! It also finished well, with the brambly fruit hanging in there for a relatively long finish.

And no doubt about it, this *is* a Burly cab. No false advertising here. Hell, it’s from the Coombsville area in Napa, well known for killer Cabernet fruit.

So after all this, is this 2005 Burly the suave and debonair Hugh Jackman, or the Devil-May-Care Jeff Bridges from Big Lebowski or Crazy Heart? Drumroll please! Envelope please! This vino epitomizes…Jeff Bridges! But more like Jeff at the Oscars. Classy, but still with that rough and tumble exterior. Why? Because, if you read between the lines in my tasting notes, you would have noticed the specific exclusions. It’s not  because I’m drunk! This sucker is all fruit, all the time. I like that. But it did not ‘wow me’ with it’s complexity, making it more of a solid, one-dimensional wine that was lacking a certain j’ne sais quoi.

Goes for $50-60, which for a small-lot wine from killer vineyards like this, and with a Winemaker with Silver Oak experience is about what you’d expect. Get it on the Burly site, at V Wine Cellars or CalWines.