Winemaker Notes
Blend: 87% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Petit Verdot, 2% Malbec, 2% Cabernet Franc
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
The blackberry, dark-chocolate and walnut aromas are persuasive. Full body, a dense and fruity center palate and beautiful depth and intensity. The tannin texture is exceptional. Great wine. Drink in 2020 and onwards.
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Vinous
The 2014 Insignia is in the zone today. Dark and expansive, it is a glorious wine. The 2014 shows the richer style of the year, along with the first signs of aromatic maturity. Espresso, leather, blueberry jam, cedar and tobacco all take shape in the glass. It's an ideal wine for drinking now and over the next decade or so.
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Wine Enthusiast
This fine vintage of Insignia combines 87% Cabernet Sauvignon with 9% Petit Verdot, 2% Malbec and 2% Cabernet Franc. Soft, supple and seamless, it offers rich but balanced cassis and milk chocolate flavors, with supportive and complementary oak. It should do well in the cellar and will be best from 2024–2034.
Cellar Selection
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
Always a wine on my radar screen, Joseph Phelps has produced a tannic one for the ages. The 2014 vintage rocks with superb black currants that are complemented with its oak treatment. Give this wine time in the cellar. (Tasted: October 30, 2017, San Francisco, CA)
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Roughly 10 years after the vintage, the 2014 Insignia continues to drink well. Cedary cigar box aromas join ripe cherries on the nose, while the medium to full-bodied palate is plush, open-knit, soft and accessible, with ample length on the finish. Ready to drink now and for the next decade, the blend this vintage is 87% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Petit Verdot, 2% Cabernet Franc and 2% Malbec.
Joseph Phelps Vineyards is a family-owned winery committed to crafting world class, estate-grown wines. Founded in 1973 when Joe Phelps purchased a former cattle ranch near St. Helena in the Napa Valley, the winery now controls and farms nearly 375 acres of vines on eight estate vineyards in St. Helena, the Stags Leap District, Oakville, Rutherford, Oak Knoll District, Carneros and South Napa Valley. In 1999, the Phelps family added 100 acres of vineyard property near the town of Freestone on the Sonoma Coast, where Phelps now grows Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
Phelps is best known for its flagship Napa Valley blend of red Bordeaux varietals, Insignia, first produced in 1974. Awarded Wine Spectator's "Wine of the Year" in 2005, Insignia is widely regarded as a qualitative benchmark for California winemaking.
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.