Middleweight Bout: 2006 Boordy Petit Cabernet vs. 2004 Villa Mt Eden Cabernet Sauvignon

Saturday night, The Wife was out of town visiting friends and left me all alone to fend for myself for the night.  In the early days, this would have turned into a savage situation involving beer, pizza, and an XBOX 360 marathon. But now, the worldly and civilized wine blogger that I am prevailed and I decided to have a showdown between a Maryland Wine and a California Wine.

I pulled a 2006 Boordy Petit Cabernet from the wine cabinet.  I must have liked it at one point because I bought it when we tasted there on my birthday in April. The opponent would be a 2004 Villa Mt Eden Cabernet Sauvignon, purchased earlier that day from The Wine Market for the modest price of $14.99. I’ve visited Villa Mt. Eden’s Napa Valley tasting room a few times and I think highly of their wines given the price. The Cabernets are nice and their Zinfandels are solid too.

The only way to do a head-to-head is to do it blind.  Try as one might to be fair and objective,  prejudices and pre-conceived notions creep into the taster’s head and come out through his tasting note.  If you don’t know what you’re drinking, then you have no option but to be straight-on about things, no?

So I poured a glass of each wine and took the dog for a walk so I’d forget which glass was which (they were labeled under the glass). Thirty minutes later, the notes came down like such:

#1. Heated but not too much. Nice plum color, sort-of translucent. Black fruit on nose, not much else. Got some oaky flavors as the glass finished.

#2. Tar and pepper on nose. Translucent ruby color. Stemmy and cherry taste. Much shorter finish. Easy drinking.

I enjoyed #1 more. I thought the stemmy flavor and the clunky finish made 2  a mortal lock to be the Boordy. I started congratulating myself about what a good taster I was and how impressed my friends would be that I can break down geography through wine. I was an awesome unstoppable force.

I was, of course, wrong.

#1 was the Boordy and it was an all-together better wine. I was surprised to say the least, and it says a lot about how Maryland wines are coming along. This isn’t the Paris tasting or anything, but a $15 California Cab just lost to a $12 Maryland Cab in an informal blind tasting in my kitchen. Now, that’s something!

Eventually the scores came down with 844 for the Boordy and 831 for the Villa Mt. Eden. The Villa Mt Eden tried to protest as it is four years old and had seepage all the way to the top of the cork. It didn’t taste spoiled or worn out, but that may be why it finished with a clank.

Congrats, Boordy!

Create Commons image courtesy of zzilch