Palo Alto Reserve from Chile

Last night we tried a bottle of Palo Alto Reserve from Chile. The wine is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenere and Syrah and retails right around $10. The reason we decided to pick this wine up at Kroger's was because it won a Gold Medal at the Cincinnati International Wine Festival. If you've never been, the Wine Festival is a fantastic event put on each March here in the Queen City. There are typically over 130 boothes serving over 600 wines throughout the evening. Of course you have no chance of sampling them all in the 2.5 hours the event runs each evening, but you can definitely pick out several you've been interested in trying and probably find many you had no idea existed. We've discovered many many wines at the festival that are now on our favorites list. We did not happen to try the Palo Alto at the Festival, but since it won a Gold, and given it's price, we decided to give it a shot. Overall assessment is, ok, probably wouldn't buy again. I would call it a very peppery wine with hints of plum. Nothing overly displeasing about it, it's just that there are so many good/fun wines at the $10 mark that I probably wouldn't go back to this one. Anyway, it was worth the try. Anyone else with stories of great finds at Wine Festivals or large tasting events? Feel free to comment, would love to hear.