Laird Family Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2012
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Wilfred
Wong -
Robert
Parker
Product Details
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Winemaker Notes
100% Cabernet Sauvignon.
Professional Ratings
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
A smashing success, the 2012 Laird Family Estate Cabernet Sauvignon showcases the Napa Valley quite well. The wine's ripe, black fruit flavors and its firm and well-built palate pair it well with seared flank steak. (Tasted: April 10, 2017, San Francisco, CA)
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon Napa, is an equal-part blend of Flat Rock and Mast vineyards. It is a sexy wine offering up notes of espresso roast, melted chocolate and blackcurrants in a decidedly hedonistic and plush style. The color is a dark plum/purple. The wine is round, generous, expansive and altogether silky and pleasing. Some oak is present, but overall the wine is very well-balanced, ready to drink and yet should evolve and hold together for up to a decade.
While growing up to be a big-city mechanical engineer in New York City, Ken held on to family tradition by buying his first Napa Valley parcel in 1970. This neglected piece of land, adjacent to Tubbs Lane in Calistoga, held 70 acres of worn-down prune trees. With Prohibition forty years gone and Napa Valley positioned to re-emerge as viticulturally significant, Ken decided to develop the orchard into a grape vineyard. While knowing just short of nothing about viticulture, Ken was also $150,000.00 short to properly develop the orchard into a respectable vineyard. Picking up a tattered phone book, Ken went to the yellow pages and found eight listed wineries…Robert Mondavi being the only one he recognized.
With a phone call, Robert Mondavi himself agreed to walk the property. After the two men discussed soils, vines, yields, irrigation, and proper pruning, Robert agreed to finance a deal with Ken if he would plant 50% Gamay. The deal was struck with a resulting vineyard of 50% Gamay and 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, Mr. Mondavi guaranteeing Ken’s Cabernet "to be the highest harvest price paid in the Valley." The support and encouragement of Robert Mondavi would allow Ken to return to his passion: his family farming heritage.
And the rest is history.
A noble variety bestowed with both power and concentration, Cabernet Sauvignon enjoys success all over the globe, its best examples showing potential to age beautifully for decades. Cabernet Sauvignon flourishes in Bordeaux's Medoc where it is often blended with Merlot and smaller amounts of some combination of Cabernet Franc, Malbecand Petit Verdot. In the Napa Valley, ‘Cab’ is responsible for some of the world’s most prestigious, age-worthy and sought-after “cult” wines. Somm Secret—DNA profiling in 1997 revealed that Cabernet Sauvignon was born from a spontaneous crossing of Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc in 17th century southwest France.
One of Napa Valley's most historic sub-appellations, Yountville spreads through some of the valley's ideal cooler sites and enjoys success with a handful of different and significant grape varieties.
Syrah competes strongly with Cabernet Sauvignon here for optimal vineyard real estate followed by Pinot noir, Pinot blanc and Sauvignon blanc.
This sub-AVA of Napa Valley is rich in the history that makes Napa Valley what it is today, and not just for red wines. Moët & Chandon entered the California winemaking business via Yountville in 1973 with the establishment Domaine Chandon. Their goal has always been to produce top quality méthode champenoise sparkling wines.
Christian Moueix, originally responsible for managing Chateau Petrus and La Fleur-Petrus in Pomerol, arrived in Yountville in the early 1980s. He formed a partnership with Rohin Lail and Marcia Smith, inheritors of Napanook vineyard from their father John Daniel of Inglenook in Rutherford. In 1995 Moueix became sole owner of Napanook and chose the name Dominus, which today produces some of Napa’s highest scoring, age-worthy Bordeaux Blends.