Community Tasting Note

Arch57 wrote:

Wednesday, December 30, 2009 - We spent about 3 hours with this bottle. The color was a deep garnet, the perfect picture of a red wine (5/5). The aroma was cream de Cassis with sage and thyme notes which were present 2" from the top of the glass (13/15). On the palate this wine was still a bit tannic and dry even after 3 hours in the decanter. I think this is typical of the '99 Napa vintage as other wines I have had from this vintage had the same heavy tannins. It was tough to pick out a primary fruit although this wine had layers of complexity (16/20). This wine was another very high quality bottle from Phelps that still had some years left in it (9/10) for a total of 93. This wine reminded me of some top notch Bordeaux more than a Cali-Cab giving testimony to Napa's ability to produce very remarkable Bordeaux blends. Sad to say that the era of $100 Insignias are gone.

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