1978 Jordan Vineyard & Winery Cabernet Sauvignon Alexander Valley

Community Tasting Notes (73) Avg Score: 91.1 points

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  8/18/2023 - jnewman77 Likes this wine:

  First '78 from California for me; this was really quite lovely; fill level was still into the neck; good color with a clear rim; complex and delightful nose with cassis, tobacco, bell pepper, baked plum, violets, and cigar box; smooth and silky with really good concentration and lovely finish; very impressive; well stored bottles still have plenty of life

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  2/5/2023 - Cailles wrote: 93 Points

  30x California 1978: So many wines from this great Californian vintage at the age of 45 certainly qualifies as a “once in a lifetime” event. A few observations: 1) The quality was very high (almost all my ratings above 90pts). And only four faulty wines (2x corked, 2x over the hill/flawed, sadly those two were the Ridge Monte Bello and the Phelps Insignia). 2) The wines are ready to drink, the tannins have melted but the tension and freshness remain high - across the board. 3) There is still lots of fruit left and I was surprised how most wines didn’t show lots of tertiary aromas (find me the Bdx 1982 without tertiary aromas!). IMO, more than a handful of the wines could continue to improve for a few years. 4) Style wise, these are obviously quite different from today’s Napa wines with much less ripeness and more mineral accents. But hardly any wine we had would be mistaken for a Bordeaux in a blind tasting (unlike 80s/90s Dominus). 5) Best reds: Inglenook Limited Cask, Beaulieu GDL Reserve, Stags Leap Cask 23 4.5l (all 96pts), Heitz Bella Oaks, Simi Reserve, Stag’s Leap Cask 23 0.75l (all 95pts). The best wine overall, however, was the magical Late Harvest Riesling from Phelps (98pts).
  
  TN: Quite intense nose displaying a strong herbal and mineral component but not with enough fruti to balance it. Better on the palate where the herbal note becomes more precise and turns into a strong minty component which plays along dark berries, dark red berries and crushed rocks. Fine structural frame. Good length. Overall a very good wine but missing a bit of aromatic balance with not enough fruit sweetness.

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  1/28/2023 - G_H wrote: 91 Points

  1978 California Cabernet Horizontal: Artisanal, herbacious and mature. A good pick but amongst the 1978 a league below Simi.

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  1/28/2023 - sirpat00 wrote: 87 Points

  California 1978 (Zunfthaus zur Waag, Zurich): Grand tasting of 1978 California wines, mostly from Napa. Main takeaways: i/ surprisingly high quality on average for wines that were not intended for such long-term aging with plenty of primary fruit left, ii/ but within the detail nonetheless a broad range with the worst few suffering from clear signs of fatigue while the best showed hardly age, iii/ top wines were Phelps Cab Sauv (97), Firestone Cab Sauv (95), and Beaulieu George de Latour Private Reserve (95). Full list sorted by score included in the tasting story.
  
  Tasting note:
  Dark cherry and dried fig with a splash of Williams, mineral and leathery, dried herbs and also a bit of heat. The palate was pretty mature and well past its peak, no longer to able balance the searing acidity. While technically still intact, with felt lifeless.

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  10/25/2021 - DaleW wrote:

  Quickly opened to replace corked 75 MonteBello. Ripe and rich, good acids, black cherry and plum, cigarbox, nice balance. A-/B+

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