Flora Springs Rutherford Hillside Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2002
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Robert
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Wine Enthusiast
Showing the best structure of Flora Springs’ impressive quartet of ’04 vineyard desigated Cabs, this is a firm, well-sculpted wine whose pedigree stands out, but it needs time. It’s a big, tannic, closed wine, dry and astringent. But there’s a gigantic heart of blackberry fruit, and I would be surprised if this wine doesn’t turn into a real beauty by 2010.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Two serious winners include the 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon Hillside Reserve, a 100% Cabernet Sauvignon aged 21 months in French oak. This was the debut vintage of a Hillside Reserve offering, and it is a powerful, rich, opaque purple effort that remains closed at ten years of age. It requires 3-5 more years of cellaring and should easily last 30-40 years. Locked and loaded, it boasts a huge nose of cassis, cedar, cocoa and black cherries, a full-bodied, powerful style with an underlying earthy minerality, massive tannins and tremendous ripeness as well as texture. It tastes more like a 3- to 4-year-old wine than one that is a decade old, a characteristic that is common in this vintage.
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2001-
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Robert
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Wine
Spectator
It all began over 20 years ago, when Jerry and Flora Komes bought the first vineyard - a vineyard with lots of history, great soils and two ghost wineries. Their retirement project became a lifetime passion for son John Komes and daughter Julie Garvey and their families. John quickly talked the family (including another brother Mike Komes) into making wine. Julie worked side by side with John as the first two years they made the wines. Julie’s husband Pat Garvey took over the vineyard side of things. In 1980, Ken Deis was hired as winemaker and he has been part of the family ever since.
Winemaker Ken Deis makes use of every tool at his disposal. First of all, he trusts his senses: The feel of the berry in his fingers, the taste of the fruit and then the wine, the smells during fermentation. A winemaker needs to understand the source of his fruit and Ken has worked closely with vineyard manager Pat Garvey for more than 20 years so that they can anticipate the challenges that each vintage brings. Ken has also adopted the same curiosity that the entire Komes-Garvey family has and it has paid off royally in the quality of his wines.