March 22, 2024 - Nice and supple, with good mouthfeel. Mocha notes, sort of like eating chocolate with wine (which is not my favorite combo, but it works here). Good acid/fruit balance. Very well done.
November 21, 2021 - Opened, filtered and decanted, drank over about 2 hours, served with beef stroganoff. Dang it, we waited too long to drink this! The cork crumbled when opening but bottom was wet/stained so don't think it got any air, but just showing its age. It definitely improved with time, at 90 min it was far better than after opening. It still had hints of greatness for sure. If you happen to have any, drink it (but let it open at least an hour).
January 31, 2020 - The juicy upfront fruit mentioned in the text on this wine had begun to prune, with bricking along the edges and VA notes below the cherry candy nose. Hints of VA are behind cracked pepper, sous bois and boysenberry. Drink now because my storage is pretty good.
April 6, 2018 - Sadly our last bottle but it leaves us in style. Dark red, a beautiful eucalyptus scent flowed out of bottle upon opening. It only lasted a few minutes before the deep mixed berry fruit aromas took over. Very concentrated fruit on palate, very smooth soft tannins, a bit of herb and smoke. A long very smooth finish. A terrific well aged wine at its peak.
December 22, 2016 - Really in a great place right now. Fully integrated. Popped and poured, no decant necessary. The fruit, which is mostly red and somewhat blue is in perfect harmony with the structure of (mild) oak and tannin. I admit that this score is probably bumped up a point because we took this bottle to a special, important family dinner, and it was a terrific night. At home it's a 93-94. On this night, it's an easy 94. Nowhere near past its prime, but probably done improving. Enough structure to stay in this prime place for another year or two.
November 12, 2016 - Ready to drink. Could go maybe 5 more years but probably not much more
May 27, 2016 - I've had this twice in a month with similar notes. Not sure what the haters are tasting, but this is exactly what I would expect from Napa cab in its pre-teens. Good lift on the nose with dusty berry, sous bois and green leaf notes. On the palate, nicely resolved tannins fail to interfere with red current, earth and smoke notes. Does it have another decade? No but 3-5 years is not out of range. Still yet, with some air this is so resolved that there is no reason to wait. Very good storage conditions since 2009.
August 29, 2015 - Drink up as the recent posters have noted.
July 31, 2015 - Agree with others that state this is heading south, though must admit the two guys I drank it with seemed to really enjoy it. I still thought it was good, just not as vibrant as a couple years ago. The fruit is definitely fading, but there are other things going on that still make this enjoyable. I'd recommend drinking in the next 12 months or so (unless you really dig heavily matured wines, in which case you probably have more time on this one).
July 24, 2015 - Past prime but also not ideally stored. Disappointed I missed the boat on this one. Other bottles were so good.