1986 Joseph Phelps Cabernet Sauvignon Backus Vineyard

Community Tasting Notes (23) Avg Score: 91.0 points

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  2/11/2023 - RockinCabs wrote: 89 Points

  Blind Flights with Boston Dinner Club: Beautiful minty nose with dark fruit and warm stone, perhaps a touch oxidative, but the mint, cedar, olive and plum notes were prominent.
  
  On the palate this was showing a hot, and a bit smudged. Some thought it might be heat damaged, but for me the warmth of this exposed Oakville site was on display. Very ripe plum, bruised berries and burnt clay notes that were underpinned by classic herbal cabernet.
  
  I'll hunt for a fresher bottle, but this neck fill with a pristine cork was about as good as you are going to get on this wine. I just did not get the HD quality of the other wines in this flight.

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  8/6/2022 - GuanYu Likes this wine: 96 Points

  The bottle drank like a mature grand cru Left Bank Bordeaux, and with the flair of Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon. The bottle became better after 2 hours of breathing. It was the best bottle of the evening, against 7 other bottles including a bottle of 2004 Quilceda Creek cabernet sauvignon. A classic.

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  12/24/2021 - ffjxc wrote: 92 Points

  Blown away that this old lady still had so much fruit. Decanted it for 2 hours & it was a hit. Hints of cassis, cherry. Just a really nice bottle. In comparison I opened an '86 Insignia a few weeks back & that bottle was a bit better.

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  1/27/2018 - mflesh wrote: 92 Points

  Enjoyed last night and man oh wow. Outta left field, this one still has the color and depth to go another 10 years it seems, although I really think this was the perfect time to open this one from a classic Napa cab standpoint. Standing at just about 13.5%, this wine had a lot of green to it. Looking it up, apparently there were a lot of floods in Napa the year before this growing season, and the summer was a bit milder, yet Merlot was a little more impressive than cab. I think this translates to this wine, that had a rather earthy nose, green, weedy, fig, hint of plum. The entry of this wine was a little on the herbaceous side, with good fruit still very present in the front, but more of a fig and mellow licorice. Earthy middle, some herb, greener towards the finish, but it was really interesting how the finish of this one seemed to have more tannin than I would have expected. Overall, very complex Napa cab, and really awesome experience.

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  3/19/2016 - ffjxc Likes this wine: 94 Points

  Inky, very fruity with mellowing tannins. Amazing for a 30 year old Cabernet. We drank this side by side with a 1986 JPhelps Insignia and the Backus was the winner. A bolder wine than the Insignia with good fruit, mellow tannins in a refined style.

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