Name: Ardoum The Red Four 2020
Type: Red Wine
Grapes: Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Grenache, Merlot
Year: 2020
Country: Lebanon
Region: Mount Lebanon
Date Consumed: October 7, 2025

I brought a 1.2 kg eye of round home with me yesterday, and I decided to make a braised roast. For that, I needed a good red wine. If you know me, you’d know that I no longer use “cooking wine” to cook. If it isn’t a wine I can drink, then I won’t allow my food to drink it either. I’m the one eating the food that’s been cooked with that wine, after all… And so, that’s how I ended up uncorking the award-winning blend by Ardoum called The Red Four. (Obviously, it’s called The Red Four because it’s made of four grapes: cabernet sauvignon, syrah, grenache, and merlot.)

Ardoum’s The Red Four 2020, once poured in the glass, displayed a lovely ruby dress. Full-bodied with supple tannins, I got notes of ripe black and red fruits and hints of tobacco, spices, and a tiny bit of leather.

Overall, this wine was much better than what I remembered it to be, even better than their Cabernet Sauvignon 2018.

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While we’re here, and since I got so much pleasure out of The Red Four 2020 last night, allow me to also share a quote from a book I’m reading now — Dialectic of Enlightenment by Theodor Adorno & Max Horkheimer:

Pleasure is, so to speak, nature’s vengeance.