Wine Time 3: Chantilli Cabernet Sauvignon

A bit of a surprise. I bought it at the store on a whim, mainly because its label didn't look that annoying, and because I didn't have enough rupees for a fancy-pants reserve wine that was shinier. But we lucked out, because it was actually darn good.

Our wine was bottled in 2005 and cost 368 rupees ($9). It's from Chateau Indage, a winery that began in 1982, and the grapes are from the Sahyadri Valley, in Maharashtra.

The first thing we noticed about this wine was the strong smell of alcohol -- you get a hit of that, and you also get a hit of the slightly sweet smell (like toast) of the oak barrels it was aged in. As for taste, it's dry, but you can also taste a lot of the fruit. For once, I agree with the wine label: there really were "rich aromas of ripe fruit, plums, cherries, and green pepper." (I didn't taste any green pepper, and that's just as well.)

This is a big wine, and I'm not sure how well it would work with lots of Indian food -- I think it would clash with all the strong flavors in a lot of dishes. We had it with some pizza, and that seemed a good fit. It would also be good with a burger.

A good wine! We give it a 7.