Last week, Cheryl Indelicato from DFV Wines was in town for the Cincinnati International Wine Festival and I had a chance to meet up with her for lunch and to taste the lineup in her new brand of wines, Handcraft. I had previously tasted the cabernet sauvignon, but this was an opportunity to revisit it and check out her other wines.
Cheryl is from the third generation of the family that owns DFV Wines and she’s worked at the company for 22 years, yet this brand is her first personal foray into the winemaking process. The majority of the work Cheryl has done at DFV has been on the business side, in marketing, PR, human resources and hospitality. And for her first vintage, I’d say she did a stellar job at creating some damn good wines for the price. Of course, she didn’t do it alone. She partnered with winemaker Alicia Ysais on this project.
In creating this new wine brand, Cheryl had a couple things in mind to make these wines unique. First, she wanted to include some Italian varietals in the blends as a nod to her heritage and to give the wines a unique expression. The red wines have a little sangiovese while the whites have some malvasia bianca. She also wanted to make a wine that particularly appeals to women. Well, let me put a dress on because these wines appeal to me too.
The label on these wines is fun too, where they have a “wine profile ribbon” in the design. All the elements in the graphic represent characteristics of the wine. Some represent flavor characteristics, like the cherries and nutmeg graphics. And some elements represent the care taking of the wine, like the birds which represent the sustainable agriculture on their vineyards.
Spice is the name of the game with this wine. Nutmeg and rose petal aromas give it a unique twist. It also shows some black currant on the nose. The palate offers black currant, cherry and plum flavors up front supported by plenty of chocolate and spice on the mid-palate and into the finish. The acidity is near perfect and the tannins are firm. The finish is long and luscious.
This wine gets a solid thumb’s up. At this price, it’s an outstanding cabernet.
Wine: Handcraft Cabernet Sauvignon
Variety: Cabernet Sauvignon
Vintage: 2010
Alcohol: 14.5%
Rating: 86
Price: $12.99
Find Handcraft Cabernet Sauvignon with Snooth
Disclosure: This wine was received as a sample.