The Reserve Shiraz was excellent – for ten bucks, can YT pull of a decent Pinot Noir? In the first hour: Cherry on the nose. Yikes – this tastes like sharply acidic, yet very very sweet cherry Kool-Aid. Some vanilla notes come through as well. No earth or funk or anything interesting, perhaps some soda – root beer or cola. There is a bit of tannin to prevent this from being all sugar and acid. The finish was just sugary sweet.
After three hours of air: alright, this wine needs to sit in the decanter for at least 2 ½ hours. The acid has gone from overpowering to quite reasonable. Some earth has started to come through on the nose. This is still somewhat sweet, but far more pleasant with airtime – still cherry and vanilla, but far more pleasant. A bit of oak and earth come through – mildly, mind you – as well. The finish is mainly cherry, but not sickly sweet as it was.
At $10 this is fairly competitive at this pricepoint – while I wouldn't call it great, after a few hours of air, this is quite enjoyable even though it's missing some nice Pinot qualities (that you wouldn't find in 98% of cheap Pinot anyway). That being said – it does not compare to the quality of the Reserve Shiraz.
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