A well-structured, quite sophisticated Napa Valley Cabernet, lacking the overt sweetness and excessive brawn that mars so many top-end California renditions of this variety. This may be due to the 2010 vintage, but it perhaps also is due to the watchful eye of Hugh Davies, Sean Thompson, and the rest of this estate’s winemaking crew. Whatever the reason, this is a Cabernet that hearkens back to Napa’s glory days of the late 1980s and 1990s. It deserves cellaring for five years or so in order to open gracefully.
J. Davies, Diamond Mountain District (Napa Valley, California) Cabernet Sauvignon 2010
By Paul Lukacs