United States of Wine

Radius – Cabernet Sauvignon – Columbia Valley – 2022

Purchased: Total Wine

Price: $13.99

This bottle of Washington State’s Radius Cabernet Sauvignon was recommended with a red sauce pizza, so I popped open the bottle so the wine could breathe while I waited for my pepperoni pie from Dominos. I’m great cheap date.

The wine was really fragrant as it sat in the glass near me. I immediately recognized a fruity scent, sweet and pleasant. All of my good wine glasses were dirty, so I had to use my wine goblets. I felt more like ruler of a kingdom, thinking about sending my army to attack an enemy, than a simple wine taster.

The first sips showed a complexity. The wine felt sharp and strong, but almost immediately mellowed before I was able to swallow. There was a fruitiness to the taste, like the tanginess of blackberries and fullness of apricots.

It wasn’t until the wine was open for nearly an hour that the wine softened, where that initial sharpness was gone with no tannins to be found. It was now that the wine had a beautiful overwhelming flavor of cherries. Sweet cherries, like the plump ones you find in a grocery story in the early summer.

This cabernet sauvignon had reached its best form. It was simple, but elegant. It had a remarkable balance of slightly sweet and tangy, like the perfect cherry. It’s a delicious wine to sip and fully enjoy. The pizza, unfortunately, was nowhere as good.

Score: 8.8/10