Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
At 10 years old the colour is just starting to show amber and brick edging. The aromatics also are smudging into blackberry, liquorice and truffle. This is very much at its plateau for drinking, with soft and welcoming campfire notes and the energy just starting to dip a little from the last time I tasted this wine two years ago. A beautiful mature Napa Cab. Carménère and Petit Verdot complete the blend. Drinking Window 2020 - 2036
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2010 Proprietary Red Wine continues to drink well, showing just a slight color change at the rim. Representing a different winemaking team than current efforts (and a relatively cool vintage), it's a crisp, streamlined effort, with cigar box notes tightly framing cherry fruit, a silky feel and a lingering, mouthwatering finish. Best After 2016
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Wine & Spirits
As luscious and luxurious as this wine may be, it has transparency to its flavors and a cool feel that keeps the fruit feeling fresh rather than superripe. The core of the blend comes from the center of this 280-acre estate, where the soils are gravel over rhyolite. The vineyards are planted on a series of hills between the Silverado Trail and the Napa River; the eastern hills of the property are white volcanic ash over rhyolite and the western side of the property is the kind of alluvial soil that's more typical of Rutherford. Charles Thomas culled more than 10 percent of the fruit to diminish the impact of the heat wave in 2010 and ended with a finely ripened wine with the flavor of fat black cherries. the fruit meets firm, precise tannins in a dark and spicy cabernet with drive. For roast duck.
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Wine Spectator
Pure, rich and supple, with a mix of mocha, dark berry, cedar and black licorice notes, all coming together on the finish. The tannins keep the reverberating flavors in check. Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Carmenère. Drink now through 2026.
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.
The Rutherford sub-region of Napa Valley centers on the town of Rutherford and covers some of Napa Valley’s finest vineyard real estate, spanning from the Mayacamas in the west, to the Vaca Mountains on the other side of the valley.
Inside of the Rutherford AVA, bordering the Mayacamas, is a stretch of uplands called the Rutherford Bench. (These bench lands technically run the length of Oakville as well). Mountain runoff creates deep, well-drained, alluvial soils on the bench, giving vine roots plenty of reason to permeate deep into the ground. The result is wine with great structure and complexity.
Rutherford Cabernet Sauvingons and Bordeaux Blends garner substantial attention for their enticing fragrances of dusty earth and dried herbs, broad and juicy mid-palates and lush and fine-grained tannins. The sub-appellation claims some of the valley’s most prized vineyards today, namely Caymus, Rubicon and Beckstoffer Georges III.
It is also home to Napa’s most influential and historic personalities. Thomas Rutherford, responsible for the appellation's name, made serious investments here in grape growing and wine production between the years of 1850 to 1880. Gustave Niebaum purchased a large swath of land and completed his winery in 1887, calling it “Inglenook.” Today this remains the oldest bonded winery in California. Georges Latour founded Beaulieu Vineyard in 1900, making it the oldest continuous winery in the state. Latour also hired the famous enologist, André Tchelistcheff, a man credited for single-handedly defining the modern Napa winemaking style.