This is quite interesting. They apparently take a wine called Dark and Jammy and age it in Bourbon Barrel's for 3 months. The result is a unique wine that was quite popular when served to friends. A little goes a long way and it works more like a "port" than a dinner wine. Nicely packaged in a shorter stout bottle. Ruby/purple in color. The nose has vanilla with black cherries and slight sweet bourbon notes. On the palate, this has a great texture. Lots of jammy black cherries, vanilla, some bourbon/alcohol notes. Overall though, it is smooth and the 16% Alc is not a problem. It was a very nice way to end the evening by the fire.
Tasted a second time on 11/16/2018. This has me a bit perplexed. It was not nearly as good a showing as the first bottle a couple of months earlier. It did taste significantly better with some air and a taste on the following day was the best. Perhaps a good decant will do a lot for taming this beast. This bottle had significant alcohol on those. Not really volatile acidity, but it burned. It did have sweet bourbon notes on the palate, but as in the nose, the alcohol just overwhelmed everything. With a lot of air, the alcohol subsided a bit. It seemed to be a love or hate wine. If serving, I recommend a six hour decant and serving it later in the evening.
The first bottle I scored A-/92. This bottles was more akin to B/87.
