My Cabernet Day Experience

A week ago, September 2nd, the world of wine drinkers enjoyed Cabernet Day. It was a wine tasting combined with social media, creating a virtual tasting experience. Don't get me wrong, many wineries participated too, hosting tastings at their facilities. Further, there were many events around the world where Cabernet lovers got together to taste many examples. My blog post, here, summed up what I planned to drink as well as gave a bit of background on what exactly was going to be happening.

Earlier this week, Josh over at DrinkNectar.com posted a great recap of the event here. He was able to distill some stats regarding who tweeted, how many tweets there were, and other metrics. Suffice it to say that "#Cabernet Day" was a smashing success. Imagine 7,200 tweets from almost 1750 individuals, in one night, devoted to one subject.

You don't have to have a degree in Marketing to realize the impact, especially considering that the event cost all of $0 to promote via Twitter and Facebook. The massive turnout was a chance for wineries to build brand awareness as well as bloggers to promote themselves while interacting with more casual wine drinkers. Furthermore, the word of mouth promotion (free) generated by this event only increased the ROI for the wineries that participated.

Yea, I opened the 2005 Concha y Toro Don Melchor Cabernet Sauvignon. Was it stunning? Yes. Am I happy I opened it and was able to tweet with my fellow Cabernet Day participants? Yes.

Imagine a wine that tastes like rich, dark earth with a vein of minerality running through it.  Someone crushes some blackberries, ripe and sweet, along with a handful of black currants into that. Baking spices, dark chocolate and oak finished out the train of flavors that I experienced.

Then again, for $60 a bottle, this wine had better deliver an amazing sensory experience. I loved the Bordeaux-like structure, with beautiful tannins and even some acidity to build a framework where all the flavors could interact, building layer upon layer of tastes.

If I had a few bottles left, I'd let them age for three to six more years, just to see what would happen. I can imagine this gem becoming more elegant, refined and just plain classy.

My grade, an easy A. If I can find any more bottles at the original price, I'll probably buy a few to hold onto for a while longer. I'd recommend this wine if 2005 was a special year for you, or if you have the means to drink a wine at this price point. I don't get to drink wines like this every day, or even every week, so it was a special thing for me and I'm very happy to have been able to share it with you.

Beau Carufel