Bodegas Aguirre Winery and Vineyards

Dr. Ricardo Aguirre enjoys making blends most of all. It’s a lot like cooking and he enjoys the freedom and excitement of experimentation: something he doesn’t get to do much in his day job as a heart surgeon. The fruit comes from his estate vineyards, which he tends with great passion, always looking for a way to make the fruit even more intense than a day at the office.

This wine is made in the Bordeaux style: 75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Merlot & 5% Petite Verdot, Malbec & Cabernet Franc and aged in a good deal of new wood. In fact, the wine sees 60% new French, and spends 26 months in Chalufour and Boswell Medoc new oak, with the remaining 40% in one-year old Medoc barrels.

The nose is lovely, appealingly ripe Livermore Cab with sweet dark fruits, mostly cassis and blackberry. It also gives off the distinct aromas of a cigar lounge, all warm, beckoning and wrapped in the mystery of Fisher Sweets and Macanudo. The flavors, however, are not smoky: instead they run to lush cassis, dark olives, rich chocolate and hints of chervil and pepper. The texture is lovely, the tannins lively and there is a delightful puff of tobacco on the fine, long finish. Made me want to light up one of those old Cubans my grandfather had stashed away. Seemed a fitting way to mark the recent departure of Fidel.

Reviewed May 23, 2008 by Laura Ness.