Turn 4 Cabernet Sauvignon
Wine: Turn 4 Cabernet Sauvignon
Grapes: cabernet sauvignon (98 percent), petite sirah (2 percent)
Region: California
Vintage: 2010
Price: $9.99
In the glass: Turn 4 Cabernet Sauvignon is a deep, dark purplish-red color with a dense opaque core going out into a fine violet-red rim definition with high viscosity.
On the nose: There is an immediate juicy, sweet black-fruit crush character with loads of boysenberry parfait, black currant juicelike Ribena scents, raspberry coulis, jammy marionberry notes, fruit-driven minerals, forward hints of toasted oak and cherries jubilee.
On the palate: It is a sweet mouthful of crushed berries with loads of supple and jammy black and red berry fruit, like a medley of cherries, blueberries and raspberries all smashed together. While it is a wine made from grapes, it really has that concentrated fruit action going on. Nevertheless, there’s a fair bit of complexity hidden behind the fruit, with soft forward and balanced tannins, great delineation with good acidity in the backbone of the wine and a very nice finish, making it utterly quaffable.
Odds and ends: For Randy and Lisa Lynch, their business is wine, but their passion is car racing. They also own a race team called Lynch Racing. This Napa Valley wine from their main winery Bennett Lane in Calistoga, Calif., is the ultimate expression of their love for the races. Turn 4 refers to the last turn before the home stretch on famous ovals. For winemaker Grant Hammond, it’s an easy task to translate the love of car racing into the Turn 4 wines with amped-up fruit-forward and full-throttle ripenesss. There’s also a superb white wine version of Turn 4 made from mainly sauvignon blanc that is definitely worth trying. Turn 4 is a perfect barbecue wine and worth taking along to the races for a tailgate at Las Vegas Motor Speedway during NASCAR weekend. It should drink well through 2014, and the nifty screw cap ensures that you can drink it over a couple of days and not worry.
Gil Lempert-Schwarz’s wine column appears Wednesdays. Write him at P.O. Box 50749, Henderson, NV 89106-0749, or email him at gil@winevegas.com.