2014 Carter Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon Beckstoffer Las Piedras Vineyard

Community Tasting Notes (20) Avg Score: 96.7 points

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  9/16/2022 - Tym4wine Likes this wine: 95 Points

  Wonderfully fragrant. Amazing nose. Soft supple tannins with restrained acidity. Dark black crushed fruit delights. Wonderfully structured. Finish is long and memorable. Unbelievably terrific. Love this fruit.

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  9/2/2022 - franinnyc Likes this wine: 94 Points

  Almost sweet.

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  8/25/2022 - SAS54 Likes this wine: 97 Points

  Drank half one day, half the next, just got better.

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  2/15/2019 - yeti575rider wrote: 92 Points

  Took to Charlie Palmer Steak DC (who has the best corkage policy btw). First Las Piedras from any winery and I hate to be the dissenter but i was not in love with this. First sip was excellent with a crisp blackberry on the attack and then the gravelly and earthy notes kick in to initially create a balance. However the more I drank this the more muddled it became to me. Shifted to overly earthy and ended with a slightly bitter coffee note. Not sure what to make of it on the whole. Still a well made wine with some nice moments but far from something I'd drink over the TO-Kalon's. I'll give the 2016 Verdad a shot at redemption in 2 or 3 years ...

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  1/16/2019 - msuwine Likes this wine: 96 Points

  For more than 170 years, the vineyard of little pebbles has been patiently waiting for this CellarTracker moment. (OK, probably not, but work with me here…) In one corner is Mike Smith, the American protege of Thomas Rivers Brown, working for the Carter label. In the other corner is Benoit Touquette, the French protege of Michel Rolland, working for his own label, Fait-Main. In the arena? The 2014 vintage of the Las Piedras vineyard. The question? Who made the best wine. The answer? Fait-Main.
  
  I’ve had both wines in the past, but never side-by-side, which made tonight interesting (perhaps for no one else but me, but - hey - it’s still interesting to me!). Each wine presented as ripe, gravelly, intense, and delicious in a way that puts them among the best of this vineyard I have tasted. To my surprise, though, the Fait-Main pulled away, with a more floral, integrated, and polished profile. Although the wines are more similar than different, the Fait-Main had more lift and nuance, with just as much power as the Carter. There is no wrong answer here, but I was surprised that the Fait-Main tasted a little more right.
  
  - Fait-Main: Inky red in color and full in body, the wine offers aromas of black cherry, graphite, rosemary, and white flowers. The tastes are luscious and integrated: blueberry, milk chocolate, pencil lead, and warm gravel, with a silky and lingering finish. There were very few rough edges with this wine - iron fist, velvet glove, all that. 14.1% alcohol. Decant at least an hour. 97+ for now (better than 9/17), with upside in a year or two.
  
  - Carter: Similarly blackish red in color and full in body, the wine offers more raw aromas of blackberry, burnt toast, black licorice, and pine needles. The tastes are a bit more pungent: boysenberry, cocoa powder, crushed rock, and cedar, with a chalky and somewhat dry finish. 14.9% alcohol. This presented as more rustic than the Fait Main - it’s not quite a bruiser, but it’s the more extracted (and less nuanced) of the two wines. Decant at least two hours. 96 for now (similar to 10/18), with upside in 2-4 years.
  
  Even though I prefer the Fait-Main, I can see the two wines boiling down to personal preference. If you want a more burgeoning, powerful, and raw wine, the Carter is for you. If you want a more integrated, ethereal, and polished wine, the Fait-Main is the one. The surprise for me is that the Fait-Main matches the Carter in terms of power and ripeness; these are both unmistakably modern (and beautiful) wines of the Napa Valley. The difference, in my opinion, is that the Fait-Main has a finesse and class that takes the wine to another level.
  
  P.S. Bonus sports analogy! You’ve now read down to the seventh paragraph of an amateur wine review (and, no judgment, I won’t ask why you’ve read this far, if you don’t ask why I’ve written this much). So, here’s a gratuitous, random, admittedly Bay Area-focused sports analogy. Drinking these two wines is like watching Klay Thompson and Steph Curry each make a three pointer. Each has great form, hits nothing but net, and is a fantastic shooter. Still, I root for one of them more, whether it’s because of his smaller stature, incredible speed, or likable personality. Even though each makes the shot, Thompson is great, and Curry... well, Curry belongs to the ages. Tonight, the Fait-Main was such a wine.

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