Wine Review - 2009 Riff Rosso Italian Red: Fantastic nose and good taste but if the taste matched the nose this would be awesome.

This was a recent purchase from Bishop's Cellars and was part of the recent Best Wines Under $25 tasting we attended.  We did not purchase this wine right away, though it was on the short list as a buy. 

We find this wine to smell great, really great.  It has a very round nose that encompasses fruit, oak, and spice all in good balance. On the palate it definitely tasted like strawberry and cherry with a vanilla toasted oak layer. The wine's main shortcoming is that the balance of flavours is okay but the tannins in the wine are too sharp on the finish. That spice turns bitter once you swallow the wine.

Now, that is a somewhat harsh description, but for a wine that smells that good we were hoping the taste would back it up but it falls a little flat. This is still a very tasty wine that is reflected in our score but with a little more balance on the finish it would be a no-brainer.

	Tasting Notes:	Score:
Sight (0-5)	Medium dark wine with normal viscosity.	3.5
Smell (0-5)	Super nice smelling wine with excellent balance of fruit, oak, and spicy.	4.5
Taste (0-10)	Overall a nice tasting wine but given the nose we were hoping for a little more balance. Still a nice drinking wine.	8.0
	Total:	16.0 / 20  (80.0)

Even though the balance is not exactly where we would like it on the finish, overall it is a great wine. At just over $16, it remains a buy recommendation.

Keep on drinking!

Chris & Shannon