Chimney Rock Stags Leap Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2004
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Robert
Parker -
Connoisseurs'
Guide -
Wine
Enthusiast
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve, a selection of the best barrels, exhibits a saturated ruby/purple color along with attractive notes of chocolate, cassis, espresso and red fruits. The wine’s texture and length are both impressive. Fully mature, but capable of lasting another decade, it is a fleshier, more concentrated and delineated effort than the regular Cabernet Sauvignon. Consume it over the next 6-10 years.
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Connoisseurs' Guide
Combining the refinement and keen focus found in the best from Chimney Rock, this delicious bottling sports ripe cherry, currant and sweet loam aromas with nary a hint of excess. It is blessed with agreeable suppleness in texture, the gift of its Stags Leap District provenance, and its wholly winsome flavors are polished, precise and inviting. Its carefully crafted, integrated tannins allow for early drinking, but this wine has the depth and vitality to hold well in bottle for years to come.
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Wine Enthusiast
Chimney Rock had 3 Bordeaux-style wines from the ’04 vintage, and this reserve is not only the priciest, but the best. It shows the appealing blackberry, cherry and chocolate fruit and oak of the Elevage bottling, but also is tannicly balanced enough for the cellar.
Other Vintages
1998-
Wine &
Spirits
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Wine
Spectator
Situated on the famed Silverado Trail in Napa Valley's renowned Stags Leap District, Chimney Rock is recognized as one of the world's premier fine wine producers. Chimney Rock was established in 1984 with the goal of creating wines that emulate the quintessence of Stags Leap District and epitomize dualities of power and grace and finesse and muscle. The estate's location in the Stags Leap District, Napa Valley's smallest and most acclaimed sub-appellation, allows winemaker, Elizabeth Vianna to capture this unique terroir and create wines that rival the most important wines of the world. Chimney Rock is a Terlato Family winery and embodies the family's dedication to producing wines of exceptional quality.
A noble variety bestowed with both power and concentration, Cabernet Sauvignon enjoys success all over the globe, its best examples showing potential to age beautifully for decades. Cabernet Sauvignon flourishes in Bordeaux's Medoc where it is often blended with Merlot and smaller amounts of some combination of Cabernet Franc, Malbecand Petit Verdot. In the Napa Valley, ‘Cab’ is responsible for some of the world’s most prestigious, age-worthy and sought-after “cult” wines. Somm Secret—DNA profiling in 1997 revealed that Cabernet Sauvignon was born from a spontaneous crossing of Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc in 17th century southwest France.
Legend has it that quick and nimble stags would escape the indigenous hunters of southern Napa Valley through the landmark palisades that sit just northeast of the current city of Napa. As a result, the area was given the name, Stags Leap. While its grape-growing history dates back to the mid-1800s, winemaking didn’t really take off until the mid-1970s after a small but pivotal blind tasting called the Judgement of Paris.
When a 1973 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon won first place against its high-profile Bordeaux contenders, like Chateau Mouton Rothschild and Chateau Haut-Brion, international attention to the Stags Leap District of Napa Valley escalated rapidly.
The vineyards in this one-of-a-kind wine growing region receive hot afternoon air reflecting off of its eastern palisade formation. In combination with the cool evening breezes from the San Pablo Bay just south, this becomes an optimal environment for grape growing. While many varieties could thrive here, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot dominate with virtually no others, save for a spot or two of Syrah.
Stags Leap soils—eroded volcanic and old river sediments—encourage well established root systems and result in complex, terroir-driven wines. Stags Leap District reds have a distinct sour cherry and black berry character with baking spice and dried earth aromas, and supple tannins.