Winemaker Notes
Blend: 50% Cabernet Franc, 24% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Merlot, 2% Petit Verdot
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2016 Red Wine flirts with perfection and should be snatched up by savvy readers. Tasting like a great vintage of Cheval Blanc with its incredible perfume of crème de cassis, spring flowers, and forest floor, it has beautiful complexity, medium to full body, thrilling purity and elegance, and a great, great finish. This beauty is all about complexity and nuance, yet it has loads of intensity and depth, silky tannins, and the class to keep for two decades. The blend is 50% Cabernet Franc, 24% Merlot, 24% Cabernet Sauvignon, and the balance Petit Verdot, all aged 22 months in barrel. Hats off to winemaker Jennifer Williams for this brilliant wine!
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Bordeaux Blend is made up of 50% Cabernet Franc, 24% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Merlot and 2% Petit Verdot from the estate vineyard as well as the Lewelling, Stagecoach and Beckstoffer Dr. Crane vineyards. It was aged for 20 months in 75% new French oak. Deep garnet-purple colored, it comes sashaying out of the glass with redcurrant jelly, blackberry tart and blackcurrant cordial notes with touches of red roses, violets, spice box and unsmoked tobacco plus a touch of tilled soil. Medium to full-bodied, firm and with very tightly knit, grainy tannins, it has wonderful freshness and depth, finishing long.
Undoubtedly proving its merit over and over, Napa Valley is a now a leading force in the world of prestigious red wine regions. Though Cabernet Sauvignon dominates Napa Valley, other red varieties certainly thrive here. Important but often overlooked include Merlot and other Bordeaux varieties well-regarded on their own as well as for their blending capacities. Very old vine Zinfandel represents an important historical stronghold for the region and Pinot noir is produced in the cooler southern parts, close to the San Pablo Bay.
Perfectly situated running north to south, the valley acts as a corridor, pulling cool, moist air up from the San Pablo Bay in the evenings during the hot days of the growing season, which leads to even and slow grape ripening. Furthermore the valley claims over 100 soil variations including layers of volcanic, gravel, sand and silt—a combination excellent for world-class red wine production.