Winemaker Notes
Xtant exhibits a beautiful dark brick color. On the nose, it unfolds aromas of black cherry, cassis, and blackcurrant. Dark fruit and blossoms. Dark chocolate and mocha dust. Sweet pipe tobacco, cedar with slight leather and complex vanilla oak. Beautiful palate entry, with a slight, lifted cranberry note. Very long and seductive with the most elegant tannin structure. Still very tight - even better after opened for a few hours.
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
Jeff Gaffner blends this wine from three vineyards—Lewelling, Kletter and Oakville Station—the wine focused on cabernet sauvignon (65 percent) enriched with merlot and malbec. It’s warm, spicy, heady and full of fruit. Associate editor Sydney Love described it as “a wine for Southern food, like ribs and baked beans.”
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.