Because we’re cheap and miserly er, budget-conscious we normally won’t spring for a $13 bottle of wine ‘just cuz’. But, if it’s a Cab and it scores 87 points at Wine Spectator then we figure it’s probably worth a gander.

So when we found this Santa Julia Organica (Hey! It’s organic!) Cabernet Sauvignon at LifeSource Natural Foods we decided to give it a whirl. Argentina is producing wines that are popping up all over the place on ‘Best Buy’ and ‘Top 100′ lists and this wine is from the Mendoza region (trés popular) so we felt like it was a pretty safe bet.

We tend not to lean in a non-Californian direction very often when we go-a-shopping for Cabernet because, honestly, we’re suckers for big, jammy California wines and international varietals just don’t do it for us. Blame it on all those ‘tobacco’ and ‘mineral’ flavors if you want. Or, we could just all agree that we here at The Haute Kitchen have palates made of dusty sun-baked shoe leather, whatever.

The point we’re trying to make here is that we were branching out when we bought this wine and we deserve to be recognized and heartily praised for it. We were living dangerously. Throwing caution to the wind, if you will. Letting fly with our culinary devil-may-care attitudes come heck or high water…

Turns out that this wine isn’t all that foreign-tasting after all. It’s intensely colored and has lots of bright fruit flavors. Though it doesn’t have a ton of residual sugar to give it that ‘jammy’ quality it is nicely balanced and very drinkable (not at all tobacco-y or mineral-y). Here’s what Wine Enthusiast had to say about it:

“A really nice and lighter-styled Cabernet with bright fruit and spicy oak crawling on the bouquet. The palate is full of friendly raspberry, strawberry and plum, while the finish is round and chocolaty. For the money, this is an extremely complete little wine that offers just right balance throughout.”

We probably won’t be rushing out to buy this one again since there’s lots of less expensive wines that we liked just as well. But if you happen across it during the course of your wine travels and you’re in the mood for a little south-’o-the-border, give it a go and let us know what you think (but try to be nice to us – we haven’t been practicing wine-snobbery for very long).