Beringer Founders Estate Shiraz 2004 – California

Following our own advice, we began sampling other wines from a winery where we liked one particular wine. We really enjoy the Beringer Founders’ Estate Pinot Noir (California) – in fact, it’s one of our House wines. Yet we were disappointed with both this, and a Cabernet Sauvignon we reviewed previously. This does have some bold, zingy acids, and some green pepper and black pepper spice. It’s just not special enough, and not too well integrated. Maybe. $8 on sale, retail $13.
(Note: The Beringer Pinot has changed, to several different wines. It's now made from French or Italian grapes. We've sampled the French wine, and were ambivalent - good but not great. We haven't yet tried the Italian.)