Me again. The other two folks are enjoying the week off because I didn't file a review last week, and the punishment options were listening to nothing but Smashing Pumpkins for a week or handling all three reviews for this week plus some back-end web work. So here we are. I meant to review this during Chile week, but didn't get around to trying it in time. It's a budget-line bottle purchased from a big box store, and there's minimal information available during a cursory, superficial search, so I'm guessing this is some sort of contracted deal. No matter. It's still better than listening to Billy Corgan for a week straight.
Nose: Bright and full on with strawberry and vanilla leading the charge. On the second sniff the oak arrives to balance out some of the strong strawberry preserve influence.
Palate: Leads with the notes from the nose but then a massive blast of cranberry and bing cherry roll through with a loud energy that dominates everything else. There's a lot of energy here and very little complexity
Finish: Long and pretty much as advertised on the palate. There's some black pepper and currant as the red fruit recedes, but isn't around long enough to enjoy in detail.
Chilean Malbecs seem so inconsistent to me. I want to like them because I always feel as if I'm reverting to the same regions for my joy, but I also don't want to spend a lot of money digging deep for something with diminishing returns.
$11