This weekend we enjoyed a simple meal of alcohol and brown sugar braised ribs cooked in a crockpot overnight. The ribs were lovely and only needed for the fat to be removed from the braising liquid – and magically we have a dinner. The dish was paired with some brown and black rice and a fresh green salad.

For wine we opened a bottle of the 2009 Tzuba Metsuda. This wine is a Bordeaux blend of 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot, and 15% Cabernet Franc. The wine was nice and round and ripe, but not so complex to keep your attention for long. The ripe blueberry was interesting, but that was about it. A rich and even somewhat layered wine, but lacing in complexity was its issue.

I have written about Tzuba Winery a few times already here early on, here again, and my latest post here. The winery was early in planting much of the Judean Hills while the rest of Israel concentrated on the Shomron and the Galil. Now they are the grape capitalists of the Judean Hills and are improving both their wines and their winery facilities.

The wine note follows below:

2009 Tzuba Metsuda – Score: B++
This wine is a blend of 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot, and 15% Cabernet Franc. The nose on this wine starts off with nice green notes, as it opens it reveals charcoal, graphite, currant, and blueberry. The mouth is full, ripe, and plush with integrated tannin, along with plum, blackberry, boysenberry, sweet cedar, and herb. The finish is long and herbal with menthol, chocolate, tobacco, and spice. This is a wine that is not very long for this earth. I would drink this within the next year or so.