I’ve reviewed a couple wines from Tamas already (barbera and sangiovese) and really liked them both. So when the gang headed out to do our big tasting day in the Livermore Valley, we had to put Tamas on our itinerary. I’m glad we did, as a couple of the wines that we tasted that day topped my list along with the Merrillie Chardonnay from Steven Kent.
This wasn’t one of them.
Not that it was an awful wine. Everything from Tamas was decent-to-excellent. But this was not for me at all.
On the nose is cherry. Very heavy cherry. So much cherry, I wondered if someone had dropped a cough drop in my glass, but no, just the zin.
The palate is no different. Huge huge cherry-centered fruit flavor. Seriously, this wine is like drinking a box of Juicy Juice. To be fair, my compatriots did not, as a whole, agree with me, and many of them liked it. But no one raved. Even if you like fruit bombs, the one-note character of this wine is still off-putting.
For the first time, I cannot recommend a Tamas wine. The Riserva is not one of their “touring” wines, as they call them, so it is not available in stores nationwide. Which is fine by me.
Verdict: 72/100