Winemaker Notes
This vintage of IX Estate captures all of the terroir and the varietal notes we love from this rocky, iron-rich site, with even a greater sense of volume. The wine is loaded with inky cassis, red currant, and black licorice aromatics. The grilled herbs, the iron, and the crushed rock flavors from "IX Estate" beam through the fruit giving this wine a perfect sense of place. The texture is lushly structured with immense volume and a long, persistent finish. The synthesis of fruit and earth reflect ripeness balanced with precision - a hallmark of this vineyard.
Blend: 62% Cabernet Sauvignon, 19% Merlot, 11% Cabernet Franc and 8% Petit Verdot.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Winemaker Allison Tauziet commented that after 2011, the vines had lots of energy going into 2012, and the team had to do lots of canopy management and crop thinning. The 2012 IX Estate is show-stopping juice and offers an incredible array of cassis and currant-like fruits as well as truffle, iron, and spring flowers. A blend of 62% Cabernet Sauvignon, 19% Merlot, 11% Cabernet Franc, and the rest Petit Verdot, this full-bodied, deep, layered, utterly compelling Napa red is just now at the early stages of its prime drink window and has another 2-3 decades of life.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2012 IX Proprietary Red Estate, which comes from their gorgeous hillside vineyards overlooking Lake Hennessey high on Pritchard Hill, is a blend of 62% Cabernet Sauvignon, 19% Merlot, 11% Cabernet Franc and 8% Petit Verdot. Absolutely spectacular aromatics of spring flowers, blueberry, blackberry and blackcurrant fruit intermixed with creosote, graphite and floral notes are followed by a wine of great depth, elegance, richness and purity. Simply loaded, but with pristine harmony and equilibrium, this is a sensational tour de force and a great tribute to this spectacular hillside site on Pritchard Hill. Drink it over the next 25-35 years.
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James Suckling
Fabulous intensity and energy in this young red with wet earth, violets, black currants, black olives, sweet tobacco and blackberries. So complex. Full-bodied with incredible depth and richness. Give it four or five years to come together. Out November 2015.
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Wine Spectator
Features an expressive mix of flavors built around dried currant, dusty, cedary oak, a gravel pit of newly crushed rock and melted black licorice. Shows impressive finesse and refinement. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. Drink now through 2028. 1,400 cases made.
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.