A chance to compare another Cabernet Sauvignon from Naked Wines (this time from Chile) after my notes on the South African Andre Badenhorst's Angel's Reserve .

Again we have the distinctive Bordeaux style bottle at the same price point (£7.99), but this is where the differences begin.

The general look and feel of this bottle is of muted colourings, a textured light brown blotting paper style label with a milk chocolate foil. It does not stand out, but the label conveys lots of information in a fairly subtle way. The word 'reserve' appears again, and as the bottle is 2006 I presume this to simply mean aged.

Lets look into the producer, billed as 'Marcelo Papa'.

Marcelo is a wine maker for 'Concha y Toro' who are actually huge, the largest Chilean wine producer. You will know this brand very well as they produce the seemingly ubiquitous Casillero del Diablo wines (with three million cases sold worldwide according to Jamie Goode's wine blog post in Feb 2008 ). Casillero del Diablo has that real OTT branding with the round seal stamped into the glass above the label. Devilishly distinctive.

So this 'Explorer' offering from Marcelo Papa has the pedigree of a enormous organisation behind it. Lets hope he has not thrown us the dregs under his rather large table.

The foil was metal. The cork one piece of natural cork. Good so far.

I took a large gulp to wash down the distinctly average quiche I was eating (I must get away from processed food).

The wine's flavour reminded me of my occasional walk to work. One of the roads is lined with fruit trees, mainly plum. A couple of weeks ago the plums were falling and being devoured by wasps on the pavement whilst slowly fermenting with naturally occurring yeast. This gave a really heady deep comforting fruity smell as I walked by.

Much like Casillero del Diablo the wine was very drinkable, almost too much so. Not at all tannic and bitter like the Andre Badenhorst's Angel's Reserve. A completely different drink. Like an addiction.
I will order more.

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