2020 Harlan Estate

Blackberry, chocolate, walnut, hazelnut, graphite, and light tar. Then goes to seaweed and umami. Cassis. Full-bodied, but so agile and featherlight with bay leaf, berry and very fine tannins. Endless. The finish caresses every inch of your palate. Thought-provoking and meditative. Extremely long and seamless finish. Better after 2029. (03/2023)

Not yet bottled, the 2020 Harlan Estate will certainly be a gorgeous wine and, I suspect, the wine of the vintage. Deep purple-hued, with a classic Harlan bouquet of darker cassis and blue fruits, it has lots of chalky minerality, gravelly earth, and floral aromatics, medium to full-bodied richness, a good spine of acidity, and enough tannins to warrant 5-7 years of bottle age. Harvested very early, it shows the fresher, elegant style of the estate today but is just a brilliant-looking barrel sample that should have a long life. (02/2023)

The 2020 Harlan Estate is deep purple-black in color. It needs a lot of swirling to bring out notions of chocolate-covered cherries, mulberries, and crème de cassis, followed by hints of tar, violets, redcurrant jelly, and tilled soil, with a waft of black truffles. The medium to full-bodied palate is very tightly wound, with lots of mineral, red berry, and black fruit layers intertwined to offer an incredibly complex, yet beautifully poised, experience. The tannins are super fine-grained and the tension gives an incredible finish with a minerally swing. Wow: it's a pure, effortless, truthful wine. (04/2023)