Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
From a famous valley floor site that’s always one of the first to ripen, the 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon GIII Beckstoffer Georges III Vineyard (100% Cabernet Sauvignon aged in 90% new French oak) offers incredible purity and finesse as well as a kaleidoscope of crème de cassis, exotic flowers, graphite, and forest floor. It’s deep, has building, sweet tannins, no hard edges, and again, this fabulous purity and floral character that develops with time in the glass. It will benefit from short-term cellaring and should evolve for three decades. My money is on it being the finest version of this cuvée ever made.
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James Suckling
This is so balanced and tensioned with firm and silky tannins and an iron backbone. Medium to full body. Savory. Long and spicy. Walnut skin and hazelnuts at the end. Delicious already. Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon GIII is deep garnet-purple in color with boisterous black fruits notes of crushed blackberries, warm black plums and blackcurrant cordial with touches of cedar chest, roses, tilled black soil and tar plus a waft of cloves. The palate is big, rich, full and packed with black fruit preserves and exotic spice notions with a velvety frame and a very long finish.
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Wine Spectator
Densely packed, with red and black currant, açaí berry and plum paste flavors, lined with singed alder, tobacco, leather and warm earth notes. The finish features a deep well of fruit, as the earthy tug lingers. An assertive expression of Cabernet that remains grounded in terroir. Best from 2021 through 2035.
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.