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12/06/2001 Archived Entry: "Wine Buy: Quinta de Pancas Cabernet Sauvignon"

This week’s Wine Buy is a Cabernet Sauvignon that is, says Carol Berman, Food Talk sommelier, what a Cabernet should be. That means it is a perfectly balanced wine – great fruit flavors and bouquet, good acidity, not terribly tannic -- that is both elegant and refined.

Indeed, the 1999 Quinta de Pancas Cabernet Sauvignon from Portugal has such aromatic and seductive fruit that it filled my radio studio with an aroma that said “drink me.”

Actually, as balanced as Carol says the wine is, I found the tannins, an important component of red wine, especially Cabernet, made the wine a little stiff and puckery. Many people don’t like that aspect of good red wine, but it is the tannins, which come from the skins of the grape, that give the wine longevity. In other words, this is a good wine to age for a few years, like a good Bordeaux from France, which it is quite like. In a year or three, the wine will soften up. Meanwhile, Carol recommends giving the wine some air, “letting it breathe,” by decanting it.

You can’t go wrong for $13.99, which is its list price. Both Carol and have seen it for as little as $11.99. Cabernet Sauvignon of this quality would easily sell for double that if it was produced in California.

Quinta de Pancas is distributed by Admiral Wines in New Jersey and should be widely available.