A Glass Act — Back for another semester of sips

This is the first wine we have reviewed that we believe could get into a better school than either of us.

The label is cream linen with a single Italian word in serif font, positioned with the confidence of a man who wears a scarf indoors on purpose. A gold “90” medallion in the corner, displayed with the restraint of someone who mentions their marathon time only when asked, which is always, because they have steered the conversation there with the patience of a deep-sea fisherman. No circus tents. No cartoon animals. No indication, anywhere on the packaging, that this bottle has ever shared a shelf with anything that costs less than it does. It is the kind of label that makes you want to dislike what’s inside on principle. We tried. We failed. We are still processing this.

Prati Cabernet Sauvignon 2021. Sonoma County, California, Dry Creek and Alexander Valley, appellations named like racehorses owned by a divorce attorney. 16 to 18 dollars. 13.9 percent alcohol. 85 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, six percent Petite Sirah, eight percent “other red varieties,” a phrase with the exact energy of a witness who has been advised not to answer. Aged 18 months in French and American oak, because this wine holds dual citizenship and we hold a meal plan. “Prati” means “meadow” in Italian, a single word doing the work of an entire marketing department, which, to be fair, is exactly what happened. The wine used to be called Louis Martini Sonoma County Cabernet, a name with the sex appeal of a municipal zoning document. Someone was paid to fix this. They earned it.

Look: Deep garnet, purple at the rim. Darker than its price suggests. This is a wine that put on a suit to go to a gas station.

Nose: Black cherry, blackberry, vanilla, cedar. The cedar arrives the way an expensive ingredient arrives in a cheap apartment, uninvited, out of place, and immediately the best thing in the room. Oak is present but restrained, like a man who owns a boat but has the decency not to bring it up at dinner.

Taste: Plum. Tannins that have been to finishing school. Full-bodied. Toast and licorice doing something competent in the background while the fruit takes all the credit, which is how most teams work. By the second glass, Bugbee used a coaster without being asked, an event we cannot explain and have chosen not to investigate. Our astute tendencies toward critical analysis, once again awakened, proved to be a benefit to our academic and personal lives. The inspiration was true as we marveled at what the world can truly bring to us. We wrote that. Stone sober. We have since checked the bottle for controlled substances. It is clean. We are forced to conclude the wine is simply like this, which is worse.

Finish: Stays after the glass is empty the way a good sermon stays after church, uninvited, unexplained, and you are mildly furious to discover it has improved you.

Serve it right: Room temperature. Decant if you want. Prati is not precious about your process. It has already decided what it is, and your glassware situation is not going to change that.

Pairings: Whatever the Reef is serving. A Tuesday that didn’t ask to become significant. The company of someone you haven’t yet disappointed, though the evening is young.

Verdict: We opened this as our first bottle back from break fully prepared to be cruel to a prissy label on a 17 dollar Cabernet. Wine Spectator gave it 90. James Suckling gave it 92. Wine Enthusiast named it a Top 100 Best Buy, which means a panel of adults who taste wine for a living agreed that this bottle, which looks like it was designed for a gallery opening in a city we cannot afford to visit, is also a bargain. We hate that they’re right. We especially hate that a wine with the visual personality of a country club thank-you note has more professional accolades than our combined résumés. 40,000 cases were made. None of them were meant for us. We are keeping this one anyway.

Rating: 8.9/10. Showed up overdressed and made it everyone else’s problem.

We would like to file a formal complaint. We were two men of simple palates. We were content. Prati has introduced the concept of standards into our lives without consent, and we are now unable to return to the wines that previously sustained us. We have tried. They taste like apologies. If anyone from the Louis Martini Winery is reading this, which we doubt, because they are busy winning awards and speaking Italian and living in meadows, you owe us our ignorance back. We were happy. This is not a recommendation.

Sincerely,
Gabe Evenocheck & Ben Bugbee
NATO Subcommand for Affordable Cabernet

(This column is for readers 21 and older. Legal counsel read this draft, said “I went to law school for this,” and did not finish the sentence.)