Quilceda Creek Galitzine Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2009

"Quilceda Creek's Red Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon opens with a dense, exotic and luxurious nose: a mix of roasted coffee, dark fruit and Asian spice. At first it's quite dense and unyielding, but it opens slowly over a period of days - not hours - remaining dense and compact, with a remarkable array of dark fruits and barrel flavors. As with its companion reds from Quilceda Creek, this is a wine to cellar for decades."

96 Points

Wine Enthusiast

"Bright medium ruby. Cassis aroma lifted by sandalwood. Densely packed and intense, with terrific energy to its chewy flavors of dark berries, licorice pastille and minerals. Less plush and harmonious today than the estate's flagship cabernet but this superconcentrated wine (made from a yield of just 1.5 tons per acre, according to Paul Golitzin) boasts a serious tannic spine and great energy and length. Should be the best release for this bottling. It's blacker than the cabernet and less seamless today but I would not bet against this chewy bottling in the long run.
Rating: 94(+?)"

94 Points

International Wine Cellar

"It isn't surprising that the Golitzins served their 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon Galitzine Vineyard after their flagship multi-source Cabernet, because this wine (which incidentally incorporates just 1% Merlot) is yet more dense, aggressively-concentrated, superficially sweet and, at the same time, evidently tannic, as a result of which opinions are more likely to divide over whether this pushes, in power and confection, beyond any given taster’s ideal. Cassis and horehound candies, chocolate syrup, and espresso dominate. Yields here are small even by the winery's usual standards, notes Paul Golitzin, and much of the wine does malo in barrique, which conceivably explains the undeniably stronger sense of toasted and caramelized oak resin vis-a-vis its stable mates. He adds that heat units in this site are not notably different than in the Horse Heaven Hills sources of Quilceda Creek wine, and that after blending a comparable level of alcohol has been achieved. Still, there is an undeniably outsized and confectionary aspect here that at least accords with widespread assumptions about Red Mountain. "

93 Points

The Wine Advocate