1999 Ristow Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Quinta de Pedras

Community Tasting Notes (29) Avg Score: 89.3 points

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  12/28/2020 - rmcnees Likes this wine: 92 Points

  At twenty-one years, this 1999 Ristow Cabernet Sauvignon, Quinta de Pedras Vineyard was outstanding and showed no signed of diminution from aging whatsoever. There is much life left in this release, I could imagine it lasting another ten years. The label, foil and cork were perfect, the neck caked with a layer of sediment. Dark inky blackish purple colored, full bodied, intense bouquet of ripe black fruits exploded from the bottle upon opening, complex blackberry, plum, and black currant fruits with aromas of exotic spice, herbs, anise, and dust, fruit forward on the palate with ripe black fruits, cassis, dark mocha, spice, leather, earth, and a seamless integration of acid, alcohol and tannin with a long finish that went on and on and on.
  https://unwindwine.blogspot.com/2020/12/ristow-estate-quinta-de-pedras-cabernet.html

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  5/30/2020 - Bay tree wrote:

  Fairly flat dusty boisenberry jam smell at first opening, suggesting strong tart fruit aged in place. Faint leather in the sun with the first sip. Intense old fruit jamminess midmouth. Smooth finish. Satisfying tartness.

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  5/5/2019 - SeattlePaul wrote:

  Coravin day 0. Some bretty funk on the nose, but quite subtle. Big, dark fruit and expansive, complex presentation on the palate. The funk comes back in the finish though, which is pretty disconcerting. Overall this is a pleasant, well constructed wine.

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  8/19/2017 - TashNYC wrote:

  We had the rest of the Coravin-tasted Magnum last winter. It was also very good. The end of an era.

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  1/15/2017 - TashNYC wrote: 90 Points

  Food and Wine in Maplewood (Maplewood, NJ): Well, this magnum finally turned up, after being "lost" in our cellar for almost a decade! -- and just in time for a wine tasting meal with prime rib my friend was organizing. So I figured it was meant to be.
  
  For a 1999 wine, I was surprised how tannic and youthful the wine drank. There were noticeable tannins in the finish, plus red fruit flavors cherry, cassis and currants, with a little plum and some cedar as well. The mid-palette was a touch hollow (vs. when I tasted the wine in 2006), and it did seem to have a strong taste on the finish. (My friend thought it had a formaldehyde flavor on the finish, although I didn't find any). It was an ok pairing with the prime rib, but not as good as the Reverie -- to me because it was too tannic for the prime rib. (I had originally tasted this wine with the Coravin, but thought it didn't that well, so I went on to the Reverie). It probably drank a little better a few years earlier, but still good today.
  
  We received this bottle as a gift in 2006. The retail was between $60 - $100 / 750 ml bottle. We drank 1 750 ml bottle using the Coravin, saving the other half for later.
  
  All the grapes are from the Ristow Estate’s Quinta de Pedras Vineyard, located on the eastern side of the Silverado Trail, just south of the Stags Leap District in the Napa Valley. This rocky hillside vineyard produces limited quantities of intensely flavored and complex Cabernet Sauvignon. Turns out the Ristow family (who are both growers and winemakers) stopped making this wine after the 2005 vintage (a winery named Pedras continued), and they sold the vineyard in 2013. This is all too bad, as I liked the Ristow wines.
  
  Drink now. And don't lose bottles in the cellar for a decade!
  
  ..

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