Winemaker Notes
SLOAN Proprietary Red is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and Petit Verdot. Layered with remarkable complexity and intensity of flavors and aromas, SLOAN exhibits a gorgeous tension between elements of grace and power, balance and opulence, as well as age and vibrancy. It is a precise wine with defined structure and immense aging potential and at the same time, a seductive wine of exceptional fruit finesse, minerality, and multilayered mouthfeel. Crafted with meticulous care from vine to bottle and exacting standards for achieving the highest quality, this uninhibitedly rich and extraordinarily pure wine is a beautiful, raw expression of our terroir – a reflection of our soils, climate, and its place of origin.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
This is a beautiful young Cabernet blend, ripe and floral, dark-hued and rich yet elegant in its mouthfeel, with pure, fleshy currant, cassis, blackberry and toasty vanilla scents from oak. Impeccably balanced, complex and concentrated, the finish keeps pumping out subtle flavor nuances that have remarkable staying power.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
An impressive effort in a troublesome vintage, the 2000 Sloan (310 cases) is a sign of things to come from this budding superstar. An opaque blue/purple color is accompanied by beautiful aromas of smoky cassis, high quality cigar tobacco, melted licorice, and roasted espresso. This dense, full-bodied, rich 2000 exhibits a creamy texture, well-integrated tannin, and remarkable unctuosity, a characteristic found in few 2000s. Notes of chocolate emerge as the wine sits in the glass.
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.