Winemaker Notes
A stone’s throw from Highway 29 at the very front of the Beckstoffer To Kalon Vineyard, this block produced exceptional wines in 2016 due to exceptional farming, perfectly balanced cropping and significant hang time. Year after year, these older clone 4 vines offer our most upfront, instantly appealing and racy wine from this vineyard. Blackberry fruits, licorice, and dried savory herbs coalesce to create a lavish multi-layered wine, offering an enormous mid-palate buttressed perfectly by the wine's natural acidity and firm, yet soft, tannins. Offering a unique amount of density and texture, this is an elegant wine wrapped up in a cloak of raw but refined power. While drinking great now, allow this wine to age and watch it reach its full potential.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon The Grand Daddy comes from a parcel of clone 4 Cabernet Sauvignon in the famed To Kalon Vineyard. This parcel was replanted in 2018, so it will be 4-5 years before these vines makes it back into the cuvée. It offers an open, perfumed, classic To Kalon nose of sweet crème de cassis, toasted spice, dried herbs/sage, cedar, and graphite. This full-bodied effort has fruit galore, a powerful, layered style, some grippy underlying tannins you have to hunt for, a big mid-palate, and an awesome finish. It needs a short decant if drinking any time soon, but it has the density and balance to cruise for two decades or more.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Very deep purple-black in color, the 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Beckstoffer To Kalon Vineyard The Grand Daddy comes charging out of the glass with gregarious scents of blackberry pie, warm cassis, black raspberries and Black Forest cake plus hints of camphor, cigar box, pencil lead and incense. Full-bodied, super intense and opulently fruited in the mouth, it delivers a powerful black fruit core with a firm yet plush frame and very long, multilayered finish.
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.