Tasted over 3 hours. Quite a remarkable wine - one of the lightest-feeling big wines I’ve ever had the pleasure. Deep and brooding but with a degree of lightness that seems incongruent. Cassis, blueberry, Washington cabernet baker’s chocolate and sweet fine tannin. That it was raised up in 70% new oak makes sense but it’s not obvious. This is still quite young but is ready to go any time. Hard to imagine it’s not going to be incredible in ten years but I don’t know that I’ll be waiting that long. It’s a winter-into-spring or late fall sort of evening sipping wine. UPDATE ALERT - a second bottle days later is trending much more toward so-called Big Boy Napa, all heft and alcohol, with the subtlety of a sledge hammer. This is unfortunate. Leaving the original score because that’s how the first bottle showed but this one is a muddled and alcoholic mess.
4/23/2023 - randyjc wrote: 94 Points
Tasted over 3 hours. Quite a remarkable wine - one of the lightest-feeling big wines I’ve ever had the pleasure. Deep and brooding but with a degree of lightness that seems incongruent. Cassis, blueberry, Washington cabernet baker’s chocolate and sweet fine tannin. That it was raised up in 70% new oak makes sense but it’s not obvious. This is still quite young but is ready to go any time. Hard to imagine it’s not going to be incredible in ten years but I don’t know that I’ll be waiting that long. It’s a winter-into-spring or late fall sort of evening sipping wine. UPDATE ALERT - a second bottle days later is trending much more toward so-called Big Boy Napa, all heft and alcohol, with the subtlety of a sledge hammer. This is unfortunate. Leaving the original score because that’s how the first bottle showed but this one is a muddled and alcoholic mess.
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