Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
A remarkably seductive effort, delightfully creamy and chocolaty, plush and layered, with a firm, rich, potent core of dense, earth-laced currant and blackberry flavors. Firm cedary oak is evident, gliding along gracefully on the finish. Drink now through 2029.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
I tasted one 2012, the 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon Vixen Block Wildfoote. This nearly 300-case cuvée is made from 100% Cabernet Sauvignon from clone 7 and aged in equal parts new Taransaud and Darnajou. Flirting with perfection for sure, this is an absolutely riveting wine. It offers a magnificent, room-filling fragrance of red and black currants, blackberries, camphor, incense, truffle and lead pencil shavings. Some toasty oak is followed by an almost never-ending style of wine, with enormous extract and body, gorgeous richness, purity, and equilibrium, and a killer finish of close to a minute. This is amazing stuff that should continue to drink well for another 25-30 years.
One of the most prestigious wines of the world capable of great power and grace, Napa Valley Cabernet is a leading force in the world of fine, famous, collectible red wine. Today the Napa Valley and Cabernet Sauvignon are so intrinsically linked that it is difficult to discuss one without the other. But it wasn’t until the 1970s that this marriage came to light; sudden international recognition rained upon Napa with the victory of the Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon in the 1976 Judgement of Paris.
Cabernet Sauvignon undoubtedly dominates Napa Valley today, covering half of the land under vine, commanding the highest prices per ton and earning the most critical acclaim. Cabernet Sauvignon’s structure, acidity, capacity to thrive in multiple environs and ability to express nuances of vintage make it perfect for Napa Valley where incredible soil and geographical diversity are found and the climate is perfect for grape growing. Within the Napa Valley lie many smaller sub-AVAs that express specific characteristics based on situation, slope and soil—as a perfect example, Rutherford’s famous dust or Stags Leap District's tart cherry flavors.