External search
Google (images)
Wine Advocate
Wine Spectator
Burghound
Wine-Searcher
Vintages
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
Show more
From this producer
Show all wines
All tasting notes
|
| Drinking Windows and Values |
| Community Tasting History |
| Community Tasting Notes (average 92.6 pts. and median of 93 pts. in 110 notes) - hiding notes with no text | | | Tasted by jwebtx on 11/11/2023: It's time or somewhere in the 4th Q. An excellent pairing with the NYT's mustard/cognac stew. (229 views) | | | Tasted by rocknroller on 9/22/2023 & rated 95 points: Very dark red color. PNP, drank a couple glasses over 2.5 hours. There's an enticing perfume immediately with a mix of sandalwood, leather, cassis, cigar box and leather, peat and sweet lead pencil. The palate is sublime, with a harmonious feel to the tangy cassis, wild black raspberry, dried earth and absolutely wonderful spices and white pepper. There's a hint of menthol, subtle green pepper and wood that goes layers into the pencil and leather notes. The last of five wonderful bottles. A fitting way to bid adieu to a long standing old friend with many, many years ahead. 94+ to 95pts. (475 views) | | | Tasted by GrapeScott on 1/2/2022 & rated 93 points: 12L format, opened on Thursday 12/30/21, when the 12 of us managed to put a serious dent in the bottle (roughly 45% finished). We revisited on Friday and Saturday, and I took the remaining ~25% home tonight, where I decanted into a magnum, 750, and two glasses for the wife and I. As you might imagine, this was extremely youthful in this format, and held up with hardly any noticeable decline over 3+ days. Some mint and spice on the nose, with beautiful cassis and plum fruit, a smooth midpalate and chewy but smooth tannins on the back end. While clearly a California cab, it tends toward a more restrained style, and the oak was unobtrusive and became better integrated with air and time. A real treat to try this in this format. (1376 views) | | | Tasted by Mark1npt on 10/23/2021 & rated 95 points: Deep, dark opaque garnet in the glass, 2 hours of air reveals graphite on the nose with strong dark fruit on the palate. Great depth to the fruit. Great tobacco flavor on the palate. Amazing how this doesn't drink like a 19 yo bottle! Plenty of life left in this one given the remaining acidity and tannic structure. Initially gave this a 94 but with another hour of air the finishing acidity and fruit brings it up another point for me. (2627 views) | | | Tasted by Decanting Queen on 10/23/2021 & rated 93 points: Jen-a-palooza with Paul, Mark and Carol; 10/22/2021-10/24/2021 (Atlanta): Drinking beautifully right now, a perfect aged napa cab. This is 1.5 better than the Venge today but also has a lot more life ahead. Expressive nose of cassis, darker fruits, some vanilla and oak, sous bois, graphite mineral ling finish. A bit of an acid zing which mellows out after a few hours. Dark and youthful in color. Thank you for sharing this one Mark! Can’t wait until our 97’s arrive (2789 views) | | | Tasted by Old Joe on 7/27/2021 & rated 93 points: dark color extremely smooth with a distinguishing finish (1454 views) | | | Tasted by Mark1npt on 6/25/2021 & rated 93 points: Awesome night with Mary and Barry...this was the kickoff wine. Pnp by moi...cork in great shape, wine still deep, dark purple/magenta, no hint of bricking or aging whatsoever. Nice oak/cedar component, mushrooms, and dark red fruit. Tough to believe this wine is almost 20 years old.....can go what? 10? 20 more years? Amazing........
Addendum: as the 1-2 hours wore on drinking this one a very nice cinnamon/barrel spice emerged on the back end and the texture became more velvet like in the mouth.....by the end it was an easy 94 for Barry and me. (3677 views) | | | Tasted by LMWS Jimmy and Rocio on 10/2/2020 & rated 92 points: Nice mature wine. Mello tanins. Smoky dark fruit (1289 views) | | | Tasted by ovenmitt on 5/10/2020 & rated 89 points: Big and juicy. Jelly sandwich. Lacks balance. Too much oak for my tastes. Not sure this will get any better - although I wish it would. Not my cup of tea... or glass of wine so to speak. (1332 views) | | | Tasted by Mark1npt on 10/4/2019 & rated 93 points: This had a soft, mellow fruit and tannin profile when first opened and enjoyed thru dinner at the Rutherford Grill in St. Helena tonight. For a 17 yo Sonoma cab this is beautiful. Two hours later the dark fruited cab nose and palate reveal more oak/cedar and astringency in the mid and later stages. Gotta love these older cabs from legendary producers like Richard Arrowood when you can find them in the secondary market. (3200 views) | | | Tasted by pdadams66 on 6/24/2018 & rated 92 points: As before. Impressive. (2229 views) | | | Tasted by pdadams66 on 1/17/2018 & rated 93 points: At Ciccio with Randy, Alice and Virginia.
From memory a fantastic wine - deep, dense, complex, well defined Cabernet fruit. Drinking very well now. (2198 views) | | | Tasted by rocknroller on 7/2/2017 & rated 94 points: Very dark red color. PNP, drank 2 glasses over 90 minutes plus. On a day where I had no desire to drink red wine out on the deck, i needed something for my dad and the ribs. Since we had agreed last night to save this for today, this was going to be it. I gave it 20 minutes in the fridge after opening to make sure it was at a good temp and that was a wise move. This has always a been an impressive Bordeaux-like wine. Very earthy with some funk, cassis, blackberry, raspberry, tart on the palate, graphite, crushed rock, spice and lovely fine tannins. Really good as always, and i'm sure it would have been even better in a cool environment. (2763 views) | | | Tasted by fedro on 4/14/2017 & rated 93 points: wonderful and worth waiting for. Personally I don't think this should be kept for much longer as it felt right at peak. Superb length (2435 views) | | | Tasted by Rezy13 on 7/19/2016: Tuesday Night Double Blind $40+ (Alpharetta, GA): Dark core with dull maroon rim; menthol, blackberry, graphite, sweet ripe red and dark fruit, old school feel, lots of oak, sweet fruit, cedar. (3115 views) | | | Tasted by lgeeker on 7/19/2016: Tuesday Night Double Blind Tasting, $40+ (Bin 75): Deep, dark, smells great, coffee. Made me think Merlot, maybe Italian, and guessed '04 Galatrona. Plenty of structure and life still left here, really well done Cali Cab. (2730 views) | | | Tasted by rashcar on 6/5/2016 & rated 94 points: WTN for me among Cakebread dancing bears and Insignia. Good structure, nose and finish. (2762 views) | | | Tasted by rocknroller on 2/2/2016 & rated 95 points: Very dark red/purple color. Decanted half of the bottle for about 30 minutes and then repeated about an hour later. Split the bottle and followed over 2.5 hours. I've managed to lay off this for about 2 years now. No easy task I might add. Tonight was one of those nights I was looking for something special to drink while we hunkered down with a top sirloin roast in the middle of a big snownami. I couldn't be more pleased with the selection. This wine shines even brighter than it has in the past, as I had hoped it would. A dead ringer for top notch Bordeaux. What a wonderfully complex and aromatic nose; boasting cigar, lead pencil, dried leaves, bright cassis, dark raspberry, and hints of boysenberry. The palate resonates with amazing purity, lovely fruit here, cassis, cherry, cigar, graphite, wood spices, earth, lovely round tannins that are in such a good place, and a very long finish. Wow, balanced, amazing, and very classy. I'm so impressed by the wines that Dick Arrowood made in the late 90's and early 00's. (2867 views) | | | Tasted by wine247365 on 12/25/2015 & rated 95 points: Uncorked 2 hours then decanted 1 hr which worked well. Drank while eating a filet tenderloin and also drank against a 2000 Chat. Lynch-Moussas and this was the #1 for the table. It was excellent and peaking. Well-integrated, nice secondary fruit profile, integrated tannis, and the acids and sweetness were in perfect harmony. While these will easily go on another 3 years I have one more and will drink it during 2016. My plan is to save it for some friends that love primary Napa CS's to show them how killer an aged neighboring CS can be. I now understand why the auction prlce has increased! (Also thinking it might be worth a 96 rating.) For me, this is tied for WOTY honors with a 2005 dYquem drank at their chateau. (2435 views) | | | Tasted by mkoss on 9/24/2015 & rated 92 points: Great, chewy cab with bright black fruit notes, perfect tannins, a little acidit, and a really long finish. Drink now! (2334 views) | | | Tasted by AWBryce on 12/13/2014 & rated 93 points: Opulent nose of american oak, dark fruits and plum. Dry dusty tannin, good fruit density, excellent length. This was a treat and will get better with time. (3186 views) | | | Tasted by JS199 on 11/24/2014 & rated 93 points: A beautiful expression of cabernet sauvignon. Not quite as good as the previous bottle, but pretty darn tasty. Ditto to previous tasting note. (2865 views) | | | Tasted by Snoman on 8/25/2014 & rated 95 points: Dark purple in glass, still clear at halo. Aromas of blackcurrant and blackberry. Flavors are still vibrant and fresh, showing blackberry compote, cassis and cigarbox, with tannins fully integrated, sweet and silky, and a wonderful long finish. Still plenty of life in this vintage, surely wish this hadn't been our last bottle. Certainly drinking at its peak, and will for several more years. Decanted 3 hours. (3103 views) | | | Tasted by stevenjstein on 8/21/2014 & rated 93 points: Took a little time to open up, but just kept getting better with air. Rich, soft, fruit, with just a touch of sweetness. Well structured and balanced. (2847 views) | | | Tasted by profiler54 on 7/20/2014 flawed bottle: Difficult to determine what happened to this bottle possibly slightly corked... so disappointed that we almost stopped drinking it.. Never opened up and remained unpleasantly tannic (3073 views) | | | Only displaying the 25 most recent notes - click to see all notes for this wine... |
| By Richard Jennings
RJonWine.com (9/9/2012)
(Arrowood Cabernet Sauvignon Réserve Spéciale) Dark ruby color; tart cassis, tart blackberry nose; tart blackberry, black currant, plum, light menthol palate; medium-plus finish 91 points |
NOTE: Scores and reviews are the property of RJonWine.com. (manage subscription channels) |
| Arrowood Producer web siteCabernet SauvignonCabernet Sauvignon is probably the most famous red wine grape variety on Earth. It is rivaled in this regard only by its Bordeaux stablemate Merlot, and its opposite number in Burgundy, Pinot Noir. From its origins in Bordeaux, Cabernet has successfully spread to almost every winegrowing country in the world. It is now the key grape variety in many first-rate New World wine regions, most notably Napa Valley, Coonawarra and Maipo Valley. Wherever they come from, Cabernet Sauvignon wines always seem to demonstrate a handful of common character traits: deep color, good tannin structure, moderate acidity and aromas of blackcurrant, tomato leaf, dark spices and cedarwood.
Used as frequently in blends as in varietal wines, Cabernet Sauvignon has a large number of common blending partners. Apart from the obvious Merlot and Cabernet Franc, the most prevalent of these are Malbec, Petit Verdot and Carmenere (the ingredients of a classic Bordeaux Blend), Shiraz (in Australia's favorite blend) and in Spain and South America, a Cabernet – Tempranillo blend is now commonplace. Even the bold Tannat-based wines of Madiran are now generally softened with Cabernet SauvignonUSAAmerican wine has been produced since the 1500s, with the first widespread production beginning in New Mexico in 1628. Today, wine production is undertaken in all fifty states, with California producing 84% of all U.S. wine. The continent of North America is home to several native species of grape, including Vitis labrusca, Vitis riparia, Vitis rotundifolia, and Vitis vulpina, but the wine-making industry is based almost entirely on the cultivation of the European Vitis vinifera, which was introduced by European settlers. With more than 1,100,000 acres (4,500 km2) under vine, the United States is the fourth-largest wine producing country in the world, after Italy, Spain, and France.California2021 vintage: "Unlike almost all other areas of the state, the Russian River Valley had higher than normal crops in 2021, which has made for a wine of greater generosity and fruit forwardness than some of its stablemates." - Morgan Twain-Peterson Sonoma CountyMendocino CountySonoma CountySonoma Coast |
|
