Try new wines at UNLVino

One of the largest single-day wine events in the country will take place here Saturday. UNLVino, a fundraiser for the hotel management school at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, will run from 2 to 7 p.m. at Paris Las Vegas, 3655 Las Vegas Blvd. South.

More than 1,200 wines will be on hand. I will as usual auction off some interesting wine lots, which adds to the fun.

Included among the offerings will be Kiara Cabernet Sauvignon. Made by Sylvester Vineyards in Paso Robles on California’s Central Coast, this is one of those nice wines that had it been from Napa Valley, it would easily sell for three times the price.

There’s quality in this bottling and it comes from a vintage that, by all accounts, is the best for cabernet since 2001.

In the glass, Kiara Cabernet Sauvignon is a firm, dark ruby-red color with a dense-looking core going out into a fine light red rim definition with medium viscosity.

On the nose, the wine features crushed loganberries, elderberry fruit skins and cassis, with a touch of underlying stems, oak-infused phenols, black cherry liqueur and earth-driven minerals.

In the mouth, the wine expands to reveal considerable richness in both black fruit and phenolics. There are soft, juicy black currant notes with cherry, loganberry, oak references, violet pastilles and exotic spice components at play through the midpalate, which shows good balance, delineation and moderate, supple tannins. The finish completes the picture of this wine as a well-made full-bodied cabernet-based wine that lingers for 30-plus seconds with yet more black fruits and phenols.

Kiara Cabernet Sauvignon is good for drinking now through 2010, and should age exceedingly well. Serve it with roasted lamb.

Wine: Sylvester Vineyards Kiara Cabernet Sauvignon

Grape: Cabernet sauvignon (88 percent), merlot (8 percent), cabernet franc (4 percent)

Vintage: 2004

Region: Paso Robles, Calif.

Price: $19.99

Gil Lempert-Schwarz’s wine column appears Wednesdays. Write him at P.O. Box 50749, Henderson, NV 89016-0749, or e-mail him at gil@winevegas.com.