“Sorrow can be alleviated by good sleep, a bath and a glass of wine”
- St. Thomas Aquinas

Aquinas wines are named after St. Thomas Aquinas, but not because of that quote.  Producer Don Sebastiani & Sons chose the Aquinas name as a metaphor.  St. Thomas Aquinas united science and religion at a time when the two were at odds.  Similarly, the mission of Aquinas wines is to bridge the prestige of the Napa Valley with approachable wines without snobbery.

Personally, I think they should use the quote.

I first tasted Aquinas Napa Valley Cabernet in a casual setting.  I wasn’t taking notes or calculating a rating.  I was just enjoying some wine.  And I enjoyed it a LOT!  It had great concentration, abundant ripe fruit, rich tobacco and chocolaty smoothness.  It was good.  You could say it “alleviated my sorrow.”

But, as I said, I wasn’t taking notes.  Other than the mental note that I need to pick up another bottle of this wine and write it up on Cheap Wine Ratings.

So I went to the wine shop and I found 2004 and 2005 sitting on the shelf.  “Oh crap… what vintage was it?” I pondered.   “I know, I’ll just pick up both.  After all, it was good and you don’t find a $10 Napa Valley Cabernet very often.” 

And so, you get a double-vintage post today.

One thing I noticed when I picked up this wine was a minor change in the label design.  Although the 2004 is older, the 2005 label was revised to make it look older.  Kudos to the marketing department for that one.

But the next thing that I noticed after tasting these, is that I wasn’t quite as wowed as I was the first time around.  This disappointed me and perplexed me.  So I picked up a couple more bottles to confirm.  And it was consistent.  They are both decent, but didn’t blow me away.

I don’t know if my taste was off the first time I tried this or if there was some bottle inconsistency.  That’s something I often worry about with mass produced wine.  I’m just not convinced that quality / consistency is scalable.  In other words, when you’re producing tens of thousands of cases I expect that the first bottle tastes quite different from the last bottle.

Nonetheless, here is what I found in my “official tasting.”

2004 Aquinas Cabernet Sauvignon 

The 2004 was the better of the two.  The nose was nice with tobacco, cherry and a hint of raspberry.  The palate featured black cherry, raspberry and chocolate, but it lacked the concentration I recalled from my first experience.  It did have a nice velvety finish.  It was decent, but a bit lackluster compared to my first impression and ended up with an 86.

Wine: Aquinas Napa Valley
Varietal: Cabernet Sauvignon
Vintage: 2004
Alcohol: 13.5% 
Rating: 86
Price Paid: $9.99

2005 Aquinas Cabernet Sauvignon

The 2005 wasn’t as exciting as the 2004. It had a very oak-y/cedar-y aroma and the palate was mostly tannic and smoky.  It had some blackberry and currant, but the fruit lacks intensity.  I ended up giving it an 82. 

Wine: Aquinas Napa Valley
Varietal: Cabernet Sauvignon
Vintage: 2005
Alcohol: 13.5% 
Rating: 82
Price Paid: $9.99