2017 Diamond Creek Cabernet Sauvignon Red Rock Terrace

Community Tasting Notes (3) Avg Score: 94 points

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  6/29/2020 - Cailles wrote: 94 Points

  Mostly Napa Valley 2017s (with 15/16/18 in the mix): Larger merchant tasting. Brief impressions. The highlight of this 2017s tasting were the wines of the Diamond Creek winery. All three single vineyards produced fresh, elegant, weightless wines with great aromatic precision, a very fine structural frame and will certainly be among the early drinking vintages of this winery. Like all 2017s, these wines cannot compete with better vintages in terms of complexity but they are nevertheless a treat to drink. The Red Rock Terrace (93-94 points) is the most feminine of the three, Margaux-like with sweet red fruit and some floral notes at its core. The Gravelly Meadow (94+ points) is an aristocratic St. Julien-like wine with blue fruit and lots of minerality. The Volcanic Hill (96+ points) is like a Pauillac with a broad array of dark berries, cassis, tobacco, leather and Latour-like nuttiness. With that score, the Volcanic Hill was the clear winner of the tasting with the biggest complexity. These Diamond Creek wines are among the best wines Napa Valley has to offer and are a stark contrast to many too ripe, too big Napa cult Cabs

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  5/13/2020 - sirpat00 wrote: 94 Points

  Putzi's Napa 2017 new arrival tasting: A new Napa arrival tasting hosted by a wine merchant. A total of 30 wines mostly from 2017 (with a few 2018 whites and new releases from 2016 and 2015 in the mix) were presented in various price brackets ($40 to $200+). For 2017 my takeaways were 1) 2017 is already approachable and offers immediate drinking pleasure. But 2) the wines also came across lighter and less layered. 2017 doesn’t seem to have the refinement of 2016, the depth of 2014 or the muscular concentration of 2015. For many, it seems, finding a spot in the sun will be hard with 5 outstanding vintages before and likely 2 more (at least) right behind. There were notable exceptions of course. Wine of the night was Diamond Creek Volcanic Hill 2017 (95) and just whisker behind Viader 2017 (95). A very notable mention deserves the Detert East Block Cabernet Franc 2017 for its unique character (94).
  
  Tasting note:
  Sweet and sexy and tightly knit. Fresh and clean fruit, some floral notes and candy-like sweet notes. Sweet and juicy fruit with more red fruit on the palate which also came across harmonious already. Apart from a few single wines, the Dimond Creek trilogy had the most consistently good performance with Volcanic Hill slightly ahead of Red Rock and Gravelly Meadow.

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  11/10/2019 - Philip67 Likes this wine: 94 Points

  Blueberries, young. Perfumed - violets. Spicy vanilla.
  Rich but restrained. Warm earthy, lively. Reminds me of both a ripe Bordeaux with the earthiness of Costa Russi

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