Larkmead Solari Cabernet Sauvignon 2008

Professional Ratings

• 96 James Suckling
  Menthol and lemon grass with dark fruits and citrus on the nose. Blueberries and blackberries too. Full body, yet reserved and tight with a wonderful finish. Tar, berry and chocolate. Chewy and round. Wonderful. 92% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Petit Verdot.
• 96 Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
  Made from 92% Cabernet Sauvignon and 8% Petit Verdot (550 cases), the prodigious 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon Solari Reserve is an opaque purple-colored, multidimensional wine displaying silky sweet tannin along with copious quantities of blackberry, creme de cassis, crushed rock, licorice and camphor characteristics. Powerful yet elegant with layers of depth, this is a wine of great nuance, complexity and nobility. A dead-ringer for the compelling 2007, the 2008 should drink well for 20-25 years or more.
• 94 Wine Spectator
  (includes 8% petit verdot, as well as the cabernet sauvignon that would normally go into the winery's Lark bottling): Full ruby-red. Subdued but pure aromas of blue- and blackberry, bitter chocolate and sexy oak, complicated by a gravelly quality. Compellingly sweet and palate-saturating, with terrific breadth to the black fruit, licorice, mineral and violet flavors. This one conveys an almost grapey impression of primary fruits and finishes with mouthcoating tannins and echoing minerality. Very impressive.