With so much food leftover from our Passover meals we enjoyed a lovely Sabbath of leftovers, more leftovers, some lovely asparagus, and a lovely bottle of 2009 Binyamina Yogev Cabernet Sauvignon/Petit Verdot. I must admit that we had previously tasted this wine and I was NOT hoping for much out of it. Rogov had little real love for it, stating that it was showing better than his previous tasting, and we tasted it on Purim, and it was a Black Currant fruit bomb. So when we opened this bottle, there was little we were looking for other than a dark wine to go with some meat dishes. In the end the wine started off very much akin to what we remembered on Purim, with a bit more roundness to the mouth. However, as the meal continued the wine started to open up more, the insane Cabernet flavors of black currant and raspberry took a back seat, and the Petit Verdot fruit had a chance to shine. Now to use the terms Petit Verdot and fruit in the same sentence is very much akin to saying New York Yankees and Mets. You see, there is very little fruit that one expects or associates with the Petit Verdot grape varietal. Classically, PV (Petit Verdot) was used as a blending grape (Coupage), with its calling card being added color, tannin, and flavors. In France where it rarely ripens to its fullest potential, the grapes lend a violet like flavor to wines. However, in the Israel, which is in the Mediterranean, the grapes fully ripen and give the wine its badly needed weight, color, and tannin, but the grape also gives the wine more non-fruit flavors, like roasted meat, tar, pencil, molasses, cigar box, espresso coffee, and black olives.

To my delight, the wine was truly a joy once it started to show its more bold flavors and the tannins were quite calm all along, giving the wine an early accessibility, while also showing more than enough body, weight, acid, and stuffing to allow this wine some more staying power. I found the wine lovely now, after some airtime, and Daniel Rogov thinks the wine can stay till 2013. I think the wine shows a bit better than Daniel does, but in either case, I think this is a wine that can be enjoyed now or in the next year or so. Enjoy this with some good meat dishes or some nice medium hard cheeses, which we did on the Sabbath afternoon.

The wine note follows below:

2009 Binyamina Cabernet Sauvignon – Petit Verdot, Yogev – Score: B++
This wine started off showing primarily its Cabernet fruit, but overtime the 20% Petite Verdot started to shine through with espresso coffee, roasted meat and nice black olives. The nose on this purple to black colored wine explodes with heavy black currant, raspberry, mounds of crushed herb, eucalyptus, dirt, smoky notes, and oak. Overtime the wine starts to show off more of its Petite Verdot fruit with roasted meat, espresso coffee, and black olives. The mouth on this rich and full bodied wine is soft with lovely integrated tannin, black currant on first attack, followed by raspberry, crushed herb, and blackberry. The mid palate is balanced with nice acid, oak, more integrated tannin, smoky notes, and herbs. The finish is long, spicy, and luscious with black currant, espresso coffee, smoked meat, herb, inky, and rich. This is a lovely wine that is great to drink right now or in the next couple of years!