2016 Ashes & Diamonds Cabernet Sauvignon Mountain Cuvée No. 3 Bates Ranch

Community Tasting Notes (3) Avg Score: 95 points

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  1/22/2022 - Madera16 Likes this wine:

  Delicious with some old world character, some bell pepper. Still very young and will improve.

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  12/17/2020 - 5laton wrote:

  Rather primary and fruity at this stage, not yet showing that typical SCM savory bay leaf character that I love. Impressively light, ethereal weight though. Showing promise.

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  11/11/2020 - Keith Levenberg Likes this wine: 95 Points

  I'm surprised there isn't more buzz going around about this project. I guess if you're in California and you want anyone to pay attention to you, you need tacky packaging and a waiting list. No such tacky packaging here as the minimalist label could pass for one of the store products in Repo Man. But this wine deserves more attention since we're talking about one of the great CA vineyards with a decades-long track record for producing ageable cabernets of real distinction, and the winemaker here is Diana Snowden Seysses, who oughta know a thing or two about making wine. This has very pure blackberry/black cherry fruit on both nose and palate and whatever oak it received is fully absorbed; with air it reveals some rusty red earth that's very Santa Cruz. But the real draw here is the figure and texture. Cabernet is rarely this svelte (sometimes the Comtesse can pull it off), and the tannins are pure silk. It's put together in that perfectly tailored manner like a suit you can tell from a glance is custom-fitted and not merely a fancy brand off the rack. And the fabric is light enough to wear in summer.

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