Winemaker Notes
Blend: 64% Cabernet Sauvignon, 31% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
From the winery's estate vineyard, high up on Pritchard Hill above the Silverado Trail, comes this spectacular Cab-based masterpiece. The color is purple-black, and massively saturated. Very intricate, complex, totally enjoyable, almost perfect. Like a great Pauillac, this monumental wine announces cassis, blackberry, cigar box, pencil lead, spice and cedar flavors that go on and on. Very tannic, but so beautiful, and amazingly rich. Decant if you're drinking now, or open anytime through 2020.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2003 IX Estate Proprietary Red is a blend of 64% Cabernet Sauvignon, 31% Merlot and rest Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot from their steep hillside vineyards. The youngest, tightest, most masculine wine of this quartet, it will benefit from another 5-6 years of cellaring and should have 25 years of life ahead of it. This impressive, blue/purple-colored 2003 behaves more like a 4- to 5-year-old wine than one that is a decade old. It is just beginning to strut its full potential. There is a roasted meaty character to this beauty, along with plenty of cassis, blackberries, blueberries, incense and spring flower notes. It admirably reveals the great terroir Ann Colgin and her husband, Joe Wender, have unlocked high above Lake Hennessey. 96+
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.