"...sehr intensive, reife und reiche Frucht, sehr warm, auch gewisse Frische, am Gaumen dann sehr konzentriert, vollreif, fleischig, dezent bitter" (09/2024)
Technical Sheet
The Drinks Business: 100 Punkte
"(Oakville, Napa Valley; 95% Cabernet Sauvignon; 5% Cabernet Franc; 15.6% alcohol; aged 16 months in French oak, 85% of which was new; tasted in person with Luc Morlet at the CVBG press tasting; essentially the last part of the Oakville Valley to be planted though historically vines had been grown there; a terroir of gravel on a very fine-grained loamy subsoil, the alluvial deposits washed down from the Kalon Creek; picked four rows at a time with a team of 8 at night; naturally fermented in 600-litre French oak puncheons; unfined and unfiltered). Such an impressive wine, above all in this excellent vintage. The 2020 was fabulous, especially given the context of a difficult vintage, this is as brilliant in the context of an exceptional vintage (not least as there is no hint here of the drought conditions that were the challenge of this year). For me, alongside Cristina’s Signature and the Peter Michael wines, this is the pick of the US releases on La Place this year. And of those this is also perhaps the most Bordelais. Cedar. Black cherry, black currant, bramble, damson, a little walnut and coffee bean and perhaps a suggestion of fine first-press peppery olive oil. Violet, iris and iris bulb too. Pen ink. There’s staggering concentration here, and great density – the effect achieved by the wonderfully authentic Cabernet Sauvignon tannins whose fine granularity engages to fight with the external parameters of the palate, never allowing the wine to veer far from a supremely well-defined central spine. That might imply a wine that’s a bit severe. But that’s not at all the case here. For this is so silkily textured. The quality of the pixilating tannins is remarkable and that gives this an incredible clarity and crystallinity in the mid-palate for something with so much extract and concentration. And that, in turn, allows the fruit to dance and play, to glisten and glide, releasing sapidity and the Cabernet Franc’s herbal florality, above all with gentle aeration in the mouth. Exquisite already, but with the capacity to age glacially (this is more of a vin de garde than the more immediately accessible 2020). The length of my tasting note indicates my sheer enthusiasm. Joyous." (09/2024)
