2012 Di Costanzo Cabernet Sauvignon Farella Vineyard

Community Tasting Notes (15) Avg Score: 90.8 points

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  9/5/2023 - VAGenius Likes this wine: 93 Points

  (45 minute decant, bottle stood up 2 days before per winery notes)
  
  Nose of black currants, wild blueberries, and purple flowers. Powerful rush of black cherry, purple fruits, and loads of stones, minerals, and white pepper. The white pepper coasts into a finish of dried oregano, iron, unripe blueberry, black cherry, round tannins, and a final tartness. This wine tastes of the vineyard, not the winemaker. Medium minus length is the only weakness.

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  6/9/2023 - dera Likes this wine: 93 Points

  Very brief notes, drank this too quick.
  Youthful almost-megapurple color. Initially somewhat tart red berries, lingonberries, some ash and tar, very pleasant nose.
  Palate is, pardon my oxymoron here, fully developed primary. Everything is well balanced and drinking well, good softened structure, but no secondary notes yet.
  This will hold up for another 10 years easily, but it's very nice to drink now as well.

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  2/3/2023 - msuwine wrote: 98 Points

  This refined and savory Cabernet is drinking beautifully as it passes the decade mark, with a power and freshness that are enchanting - and delicious. The fullness of the 2012 vintage shows through - sunshine, fruit, all the good things - but there is a wildness here that reaches another level. To search for comparisons, this seems more generous than a Dunn, more nimble than a Forman, and more precise than most of the valley floor (and a lot of the vintage). I kept thinking this was like a 2012 Promontory - classy, balanced, energetic, a bit raw, but entirely natural (in a pure sense of the word: you feel that California sun on your arms, standing in an herb garden with dust on your boots, or something).
  
  Onto the adjectives: Scarlet in color and medium in body, the wine offers evocative aromas of black cherry, dried raspberry, sage, white flowers, and gravel. The flavors are energetic but layered, with notes of pomegranate, blackberry, espresso, oregano, and graphite, followed by a lifted and briary finish that softens after a few hours of air. 14.2% alcohol. Some 2012’s have started to lose definition, but this one has just finished sharpening its pencil - and it will write beautifully for quite a long time. Drink now or whenever. What a wine.

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  5/22/2021 - SLOFred wrote: 89 Points

  Hard to justify a 9 year old, $85 Napa Valley wine that still needs a Vinturi to be drinkable. Definitely will not buy again. Way over priced. Nice color, but it stops there. Not much nose, some fruit up front, not much body and tannic finish.

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  12/13/2020 - PAWS wrote: 91 Points

  A beautiful wine, drinking nicely with full fruit and smooth tannins. Enjoy

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View all 15 Community Tasting Notes

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