1987 Diamond Creek Cabernet Sauvignon Red Rock Terrace

Community Tasting Notes (27) Avg Score: 91.8 points

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  8/28/2021 - oldwines Likes this wine: 94 Points

  In my cellar since release. This wine has a distinctly polarized range of opinions. Some “pro’s” really trashed it in the early 2000’s and the CT users views range widely with some notable flawed bottles. My previous bottle of this was good but not great, this one was much better. It re-inforces two of my views about this and some other of the Classic California/Napa Cabs as opposed to the modern “cult” versions. This bottle was decanted at 2:30 pm and tasted right away and then again with dinner between 6pm and 9pm with grilled steaks. This is the first opinion… this wine, like Ch. Montelena Cabs and others NEEDS a long decant. The second is that they also need extended proper cellaring. The wine is a translucent ruby garnet with surprisingly little bricking. The nose is earthy, lightly floral, and bright cherry infused. The palate has some still prominent tannins on first pouring but later is velvety soft. The flavors evolve a little from cherry to red currant, with earthy forest flor notes and some slight herbal nuances. It went really well with the steaks and over the evening as I tasted this along side a 1988 Diamond Creek Gravelly Meadow and a 1988 Ch. Lafite Rothschild, I went back and forth on which one was best with this one briefly considered the best. The wine has a slightly austere mouth feel at times especially very late in the evenings s it did begin to =fade before the other two wines, but I got the sense that this was still holding back some of its beauty which may still be revealed later… Unfortunately this was my last bottle.

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  1/31/2020 - prof b wrote:

  Same bottle as Salil. I agree it started promising before falling apart. I bought this bottle ~10 years ago from a collection in which the wines were typically in great shape. Not so much for this bottle.

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  1/31/2020 - salil wrote: flawed

  Well, this is a bummer. Starts out promising with some dark fruit and earth, but it quickly falls apart with air and turns into a stewed mess. I suspect this saw some heat.

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  11/2/2019 - oldwines wrote: 90 Points

  I was spurred to try all my 1987 Diamond Creek’s after reading some horrible reviews by both CT users and some “pro’s” including John Gilman of “View From the Cellar” and Steven Tanzer of “Vinous”. Gilman, in particular, I often agree with, so I was quite concerned since I had not tried one of these in many years. They have been in my cellar since release. I decanted all three vineyard cru’s...Gravelly Meadow, Red Rock Terrace and Volcanic Hill at 2:45 pm and tasted them repeatedly and with dinner over the next 8 hours as well as the next day. Right after decanting this was medium to dark garnet with some bricking. It was earthy on the nose with some spice, cedar and leather. Medium+ tannin and acidity. Palate was again quite green and harsh. Later, especially at the 3 1/2 Hour mark, the bricking was gone, the nose had opened with more game meat, vanilla, oak and ripe plum. The finish all along was rather short but the transformation with air is notable and it was dramatically better. If you taste this PnP you are doing yourself a disservice. In my experience Diamond Creek wines need significant time to breathe usually 3-8 hours to be at their best. While this was pleasant enough to have after the air, it was not good on PnP and was frankly my least favorite of the 3 cru’s. It was slightly better than the others the next day but they all were in decline at that point for sure.

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  11/29/2017 - nywine68 Likes this wine: 94 Points

  Very nice, still very youthful. Not nearly as tannic as the Volcanic Hill yet plenty of grip left. Dark saturated cabernet flavors with only a hint of maturity. This will live forever!

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