Winemaker Notes
Blend: 100% Cabernet Sauvignon
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Another sensational wine in the lineup is the 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Morisoli Vineyard, which comes from a great site in Rutherford. All Cabernet Sauvignon brought up in new barrels, it has a regal, full-bodied, structured yet lively style that brings beautiful cassis and assorted darker cherry-like fruits, building tannins, a gravelly earth-like sense of minerality, and the vintage's pure, focused, incredibly impressive style. I love everything about this beauty, and while it offers pleasure today, it warrants 4-6 years in the cellar. It will drink well for at least two decades.
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James Suckling
Lots of ripe fruit but not overdone with meat, blackberries and boysenberries. Full-bodied with plush, velvety tannins and a light toffee undertone. Lovely ripeness and opulence but framed and gorgeous.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
My favorite of Amici's recent wines is the 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Morisoli Vineyard. While it aged In100% new French oak—and it does offer scents of mocha, cedar and creosote—it's also richly fruited, with layers of deep plum and black cherry. Full-bodied, rich and expansive, it's nicely ripe and supple without being over the top, and it boasts a long, licorice-tinged finish.
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.
The Rutherford sub-region of Napa Valley centers on the town of Rutherford and covers some of Napa Valley’s finest vineyard real estate, spanning from the Mayacamas in the west, to the Vaca Mountains on the other side of the valley.
Inside of the Rutherford AVA, bordering the Mayacamas, is a stretch of uplands called the Rutherford Bench. (These bench lands technically run the length of Oakville as well). Mountain runoff creates deep, well-drained, alluvial soils on the bench, giving vine roots plenty of reason to permeate deep into the ground. The result is wine with great structure and complexity.
Rutherford Cabernet Sauvingons and Bordeaux Blends garner substantial attention for their enticing fragrances of dusty earth and dried herbs, broad and juicy mid-palates and lush and fine-grained tannins. The sub-appellation claims some of the valley’s most prized vineyards today, namely Caymus, Rubicon and Beckstoffer Georges III.
It is also home to Napa’s most influential and historic personalities. Thomas Rutherford, responsible for the appellation's name, made serious investments here in grape growing and wine production between the years of 1850 to 1880. Gustave Niebaum purchased a large swath of land and completed his winery in 1887, calling it “Inglenook.” Today this remains the oldest bonded winery in California. Georges Latour founded Beaulieu Vineyard in 1900, making it the oldest continuous winery in the state. Latour also hired the famous enologist, André Tchelistcheff, a man credited for single-handedly defining the modern Napa winemaking style.