Duckhorn Vineyards, Napa Valley (California) Cabernet Sauvignon 2016

 Duckhorn has done it again, producing yet another outstanding wine that is both subtle and unabashedly powerful.  Its flavors, including sun-drenched blackberry, blueberry, concentrated raspberry, sweet spices and an elusive balancing note of vanilla are simply delicious, and the texture (liquid velvet!) is sublime.  It’s probably worth noting that the wine’s alcohol level of 14.7% neither burns nor overwhelms the palate.  As one might guess, this is a wine to be enjoyed with steak, burgers and the like, but out of curiosity I also tried it recently with roast turkey, both white and dark meat, which I served for the experiment with plain white rice.  Somewhat to my surprise, this big powerhouse of a wine seemed to envelop the food in a tasty embrace rather than overwhelming it.  I don’t think most such colossal red wines would be the right match for Thanksgiving dinner but this attention-getting Cabernet might be the exception.