2013 Smith-Madrone Cabernet Sauvignon
Community Tasting Note
RajivAyyangar wrote:
Saturday, April 8, 2017 - Bachelor Party trip to Napa/Sonoma (Sonoma, Napa, SF): 82% Cab, 12% Cab Franc, 6% Merlot.
Beautiful nose. A well-knit flourish of black cassis fruit, pyrazines (coffee, cigarette ash, ripe bell peppers) blending with possible slight Brett(fresh earth, slight dog fur / spice), which also blends with a hint of oak (vanilla spice, used-wood notes). It's doing the thing that great Bordeaux does - where the coffee and tobacco of the pyrazines bridge with the Maillard notes and the spice of the oak, which in turn bridges with with spice and the earth from the Brett. But compared with Bordeaux, this has that Napa intensity of blackcurrant fruit.
On the palate, it's seamless, structured, and vibrant. Dry, medium plus body, medium plus alcohol (feels only 14%), high acid, high tannins (chewy and ripe). There's a beautiful mid-palate integration with brown olive and cassis, as well as a long, evolving finish.
Stylistically it reminds me a lot of Corison, though to my taste it achieves a greater flavor integration and complexity because the pyrazines are a bit more present, and they bridge the fruit with savory notes.
In terms of fruit intensity, structure, and energy, it reminds me of the Spottswoode Lyndenhurst, but of course with more savory notes, less overt new oak.
And it's at a much lower price point than both of these!
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