1999 Cain Five

[Glass_A_Day]

Named for the five veriatels included in the package, Cab Sauv 61%, Cab Franc 19%, Merlot 10%, Petit Verdot 6%, and Malbec 4%, this one is a mouthful. Very well balanced and round, but unfortunatly not my style in any way. If tasted blind I would guess it to be a Spanish wine, perhaps a Roja. Very spicy with a touch of green on the nose and palet. I'm not sure which grape gave it this quality. Maybe someone more experienced might have a guess. WW? Anywho, I guess I would go along with the WS rating of 88, but am glad I only invested in one...

[Kcwhippet]

If by "green" you mean a vegetal quality, then the grapes weren't quite ripe when they were picked, and that's a flaw I would think Cain would be good enough to avoid.

[Glass_A_Day]

I think you hit it KC and I wish they would have...

[Glass_A_Day]

It's funny, a cheap bottle of Excelsior Cab or Peachy Canyon Eastside Zin always gets finished. The last bottle of $90 Cain Five went down the drain. Actually, that's not funny at all.

[winoweenie]

GAD I haven't tried any Cain 5s since the 97. My guess the Petite Verdot is the culprit 'cause they have so little growing in Napa that most comes from basically 3-4 growers so they probably tend to pick on demand rather than when the grapes are ripe. Just a guess. WW

[wondersofwine]

I purchased one bottle of the 2002 Cain Five after tasting it at a "barrel sampling" charity event. Wine is still in "futures" status and I'm still waiting on my 2001 Frazier C.S. (but have picked up the 2001 ZD Cabernet). The Cabernet Franc seemed to impart a nice flavor to the 2002 Cain Five.

[winoweenie]

The 01 Z.D. Cab was one of the top 10 we sampled on the recent Napa trip. BigRedWines has the TASTING NOTES!!!!WW

[wondersofwine]

I look forward to reading them. My bottles are not the ZD Reserve so are probably quite approachable now. (Even the Reserve seemed to be much less tannic than some of the barrel samples).

[wineguruchgo]

It's funny because when I read the topic of the post the first thing I said was "I didn't like it".

Hmmm....looks like I'm not alone. I had high expectations for this wine and was very disappointed when I tried it. Luckily I didn't buy it - the distributor rep was running around with the open bottle.