Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
A potentially perfect wine, which is in bottle after having spent 30 or so months in a combination of old and new oak. The practice under Bob Foley is to first keep the wines in neutral wood as the selections are made for the different cuvees and then, once made, move the wines into new oak until bottling. The 2001 Reserve Claret, which is a 450-case blend of two-thirds Merlot and one-third Cabernet Sauvignon, is a spectacular wine, offering up a dense purple color and a nose of lead pencil shavings, blackberries, creme de cassis, chocolate, and espresso roast. The wine is full-bodied, opulent, layered, with tremendous purity and persistence on the palate. It is a stunning example of mountain viticulture that can be drunk now, although it is still an adolescent in its evolutionary development and will age for 15-20 years.
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Wine Spectator
Deep ruby-red. Knockout nose combines roasted black raspberry, cassis, espresso and bitter chocolate. Sweet, fat and deep, with extravagantly rich, seamless flavors of dark berries and chocolate. Not as sweet as the Mountaintop merlot but even larger-scaled. The finish shows more obvious cabernet tannins and considerable sweet oak, but has more than enough powerful, palate-staining fruit. As a potential purchase, this is a no-brainer for collectors who can find and afford it.
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.