Winemaker Notes
This blend shines with leaner cuts of meat like flank, sirloin, and skirt steak.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This is a fascinating and seductive red blend with everything from chocolate and ripe blackberries to delicate herbal and savory notes. The full body is married to restrained power, moderately dry tannins and lovely freshness that lifts the finish. A blend of 47 per cent Malbec, 27 per cent petit verdot, 23 per cent cabernet sauvignon and three per cent merlot. Drink or hold.
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Decanter
Succulent dark chocolate and blackberry notes, with ripe plum, black cherry, bramble and violet. Harmonious, smooth and supple with wonderfully balanced nuances of oak.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: Just because a wine is made with serious intentions, it doesn't mean the wineries can't have fun. Trefethen Family Vineyard's Dragon's Tooth is a British legend where two dragons—one red, one white—fight in the sky. The story eventually foretells the coming of King Arthur who will lead Vortigern's people, the Welsh, to victory over the invading Saxons. The 2016 Dragon's Tooth Red Blend is a tour de force and a real red wine to boot. Its aromas and flavors of dark, brooding fruits and savory spice should pair majestically with a slowly braised stew. Let's live a little and have some fun at the same time! (Tasted: August 27, 2018, San Francisco, CA)
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Wine Enthusiast
The Oak Knoll producer’s blend of 47% Malbec, 27% Petit Verdot, 23% Cabernet Sauvignon and 3% Merlot is elegant and structured. Red currant, cassis and cedar give personality to firm tannins—the grapes grown on the winery’s rockiest blocks.
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Connoisseurs' Guide
47% Malbec; 27% Petit Verdot; 23% Cab. Franc; 3% Merlot. Boasting a concentrated, fully ripe, black cherry presence and showing attractive highlights of vanilla, dusty soils and touches of briary spice from front to back, Trefethen’s Malbec-heavy proprietary blend is a very rich and fairly rough-hewn wine that frames its ample, well-extracted fruit with a full measure of gritty, undisguised tannins. It is rather unpolished at this point in its very young life, yet, for all of its obvious toughness, it is driven by deep fruit throughout. It is sure to find much-needed manners with the passing of time and needs to be laid away for no fewer than four or five years.
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Wine & Spirits
A blend of malbec (47 percent), along with petit verdot, cabernet sauvignon and a little merlot, this is supple and generous without excess weight. Give it some time in a decanter to shed its initial reduction and the flavors clean up to a simple note of black grapes, chocolate almonds and mint. For braised lamb.
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.