Description: Our cuvee of top Napa Valley properties produced a powerhouse in the 2005 vintage. Aromas of blackcurrant and tobacco reveal themselves as this deep black garnet offering opens up in the glass. A dense, viscous palate coats the mouth with boysenberry, roasted coffee and a hint of vanillin. Chewy tannins and notes of black pepper mark the finish of a cellar-worthy offering.
Robert Parker: Offers beautiful black currant fruit interwoven with notions of licorice, cedar, and tobacco leaf. Full-bodied, opulent, and fleshy, it should drink nicely for 12-15+ years.
Wine Spectator: Intense and focused, with firm, spicy currant, sage, mineral and cedary oak flavors that are tight and complex and in need of short-term cellaring. Best from 2009 through 2015. 4,856 cases made.
–JLStephen Tanzer: Dark purple. Smoky black currant and candied plum on the nose, with dusty minerals adding focus. Juicy and concentrated, with powerful dark fruit flavors, velvety texture and building spiciness. Offers impressive vivacity for a wine with such depth, finishing brisk and clean.
Vinification: Hand-harvested grapes; Fermented in 10 ton closed-top stainless steel fermentors with indigenous selected yeasts; 5 days cold soak, 35 day total maceration: Spontaneous malolactic fermentation in barrels; 7 months to completion : Aged 20 months in French oak barrels from Taransaud, Seguin Moreau, Alain Fouquet, Demptos, Bossuet, Nadalie and Sylvain; 69% new
