hi.
all of those wines should be served at about room temperature. try them at the optimum temp before passing judgement, they should be decent bottles.
my guess, and a guess it is, is that the wines were very cold and you could not properly taste the size of the wine. those wines really develop with temperature into what they are supposed to be. When cold, they would be very smooth and easy to drink, but the acids and staining would indeed catch up with you. also, the aftertaste of the cabs (the finish) will be longer and bigger than the pinot noir, by style and definition. the pinot is usually a much lighter tasting red. even the "biggest" of the big reds tastes light and easy to drink when it is cold, but is much more robust at the proper temp. If you prefer lighter wines, start with reislings and guwurtzraminer and move into pinot gris and chenin blancs. once you are ok with a little dryness in your wine, try the reds again.
erik. | 
Wine tasting question... 
. They were both served cold. We drank them after the turkey dinner by probably an hour, so my palate was relatively clean. The Pinot was a Chalone vineyard 2003 or 2004--this was the wine I drank first with no after taste at all. And I don't know if this helps, but when I started getting the after taste from the cabs, my wife noticed that the back of my tongue was very purple--isn't the back the part of the tongue where bitter is experienced? She seemed to say that it looked "coated" as opposed to stained as with otter-pops or lollipops. There may have been a noticeable metallic taste--I know there was another flavor besides bitter--but the bitter was so overwhelming that I just couldn't taste anything else. I will post the third wine tonight. Thanks again! 
