Winemaker Notes
Blend: 85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot
Professional Ratings
-
Jeb Dunnuck
During my visit, I was also able to taste a bottle of the 2012 Proprietary Red, which is firing on all cylinders today. Gorgeous aromatics of currants, iron, Asian spice, and black olive all define the nose, and it's full-bodied on the palate, with a layered, graceful mouthfeel, beautiful tannins, and a great finish. This is a regal, majestic effort offering incredible purity and length. It's clearly in its prime drinking window yet should easily have another 15 years of prime drinking followed by a gradual decline.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Owned by the Chinese Pan family, but still featuring Michel Rolland as its winemaking consultant, the 2012 Proprietary Red Blend Sloan has turned out beautifully. The vintage gives it a precocious silkiness that is atypical. A blend of 80% Cabernet Sauvignon and the rest Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot, it showcases this fabulous terroir on the steep hillsides of the Vaca mountains, behind the luxury resort of Auberge du Soleil. The 2012 offers up beautiful notes of blueberries, blackberries, cedarwood, graphite, espresso, licorice and chocolate along with copious quantities of glycerin and fruit. This is a big, surprisingly savory and fleshy effort from Sloan that comes closest stylistically to their magnificent 2002. It can be drunk now but will be even better in 7-8 years, and should keep for 25-30 years.
One of the world’s most classic and popular styles of red wine, Bordeaux-inspired blends have spread from their homeland in France to nearly every corner of the New World. Typically based on either Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot and supported by Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot, the best of these are densely hued, fragrant, full of fruit and boast a structure that begs for cellar time. Somm Secret—Blends from Bordeaux are generally earthier compared to those from the New World, which tend to be fruit-dominant.
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.