Wine & Spirits - December 2020 - 57

YEAR'S BEST US CABERNETS & BLENDS
Coombsville's Harmony School Vineyard,
with additional cabernet and merlot from
a vineyard in Calistoga. It's an elegant red,
with the cedar scent of a tobacconist's shop.
While the wine is completely savory, it's
also supple, filled with luscious dark-berry
flavors and a sensation of cocoa dusting
the tannins. McBride allows his destemmed
fruit to spontaneously ferment in oak barrels
and, after aging, bottles it without fining or
filtering; the wine feels like a live connection
to its source in the Coombsville hills. - J.G. §
521588

94 | Duckhorn

$100

2017 Napa Valley Three Palms Vineyard
Cabernet Sauvignon ^ While Three Palms
has historically been tied to its legendary
merlot, the rocky vineyard on Calistoga's valley floor also has provided some exceptional
cabernets, particularly since 2015, when
Duckhorn added the vineyard to its estate.
This is a pretty glorious 2017, open and racy,
a wine with length and finesse to its violet
and blueberry scents. Tannins structure the
wine while feeling completely integrated into
the fruit, suggesting a long life ahead. - J.G. §

Rocas and Barboza in the Stags Leap District,
with smaller contributions from south Napa,
Oak Knoll and St. Helena). It's a significantly
tighter selection than usual, given heat spikes
and then the fires at the end of the vintage,
but the top fruit of 2017 produced an extraordinary wine, one that maintains its cool
for days after you first open the bottle. It's
dynamic and graceful, with floral red fruit
and dense blueberry-skin tannins that give
the wine length and staying power. Whitney
Asher of Brava in Lenox, Mass., described the
wine as "bionic: It will last in your cellar for
thirty years. You want to age it at least five
years, or decant it for five hours." - J.G. §
521546

94 | Yao Ming

$695

2017 Napa Valley The Chop Cabernet Sau-
vignon ^ Tom Hinde makes this wine from the
Morisoli Vineyard on the western benchlands of Rutherford along Neibaum Lane; he
blends in some fruit from the Pestoni family's vineyard on Bella Oaks Lane, giving the
wine two years in new Vallaurine oak barrels
from staves aged by Dargaud & Jaeglé. Both
generous and elegant, this cabernet buzzes
with energy and sweet ripeness, initially cut
by a saline savor. The savory side takes precedence with air, the flavors turning toward
oyster mushrooms and rosemary, the tannins
taking on Rutherford's bitter cocoa notes.
The flavor complexity seems to last for minutes after each sip. - J.G. §

521290

94 | Duckhorn

$78

2017 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon ^
This is a Napa Valley cabernet that does
everything right. Renee Ary blends fruit from
Duckhorn's estate with grapes from growers,
including 12 percent merlot to point up the
luscious texture; she ages the wine for 16
months in French oak barrels (half of them
new), without it becoming overtly oaky. It's
a wine of elegance and restraint, delicious
in its sweet purple-plum intensity, succulent in its earthy tannins. Those mineral
tannins retreat into the finish, allowing the
savory fruit to move in. Accessible now, this
will only improve with a few years in bottle.
-J.G. (W&S 10/20) §
521725

94 | Joseph Phelps

$300

2017 Napa Valley Insignia ^ Ashley Hepworth blended the 2017 Insignia, working
with cabernet sauvignon (94 percent) from
the family's estate vineyards (mostly Las

522021

93 | Crosby Roamann

$90

2017 Napa Valley Crosby's Reserve Caber-
net Sauvignon ^ This is a Coombsville cabernet, harvested from the Harmony School
Vineyard in early October and blended with
some Calistoga merlot picked a month earlier, when a heat spike propelled it to ripeness. The wine's muscle builds out of mineral-rich tannins, their astringency dynamic
rather than blunt, working with powerful
grace to shepherd the dark savor of the fruit.
Notes of green plum, tobacco and fines herbes tame the lusciousness of that fruit, making the wine accessible now. - J.G. §
521579

93 | Duckhorn

$100

93 | Duckhorn

$100

93 | Stag's Leap
Wine Cellars

$195

92 | Cakebread

$129

92 | Covenant

$150

2017 Napa Valley Rector Creek Vineyard
Cabernet Sauvignon ^ Duckhorn's Rector
Creek Vineyard lies just above Yountville, on
the west side of the Silverado Trail. Its rocky,
alluvial soils grew a brisk cabernet in 2017,
vibrant in the clarity of its flavors of blackcherry skins and its mouthwatering tannins.
A wine with a healthy, untroubled sense of
grace, it's a smooth, ripe cabernet holding
some tension that will see it through several
years of bottle age. - J.G. §
521595
2017 Napa Valley Patzimaro Vineyard
Cabernet Sauvignon ^ Duckhorn farms 15
acres on the St. Helena bench where it meets
Spring Mountain, a vineyard the company
purchased in 1989. The clay-loam soils produced a plump and plummy wine in 2017, its
earthy tannins brightened by scents of strawberries and roses. It finishes completely dry,
both sophisticated and clean, a wine to pour
with country pâté or a hanger steak. - J.G. §
521318
2017 Napa Valley S.L.V. Cabernet Sauvi-
gnon ^ The rocky hillside soils of S.L.V. produced a dark and savory cabernet in 2017,
with peppery intensity that feels driven by
alcohol at first. Then, as it settles and integrates, the alcohol becomes part of the
dynamic whole, layered into the tannins to
highlight their dark-chocolate succulence.
It's generous with blackberry fruit that still
carries its youthful grapiness, structured to
age and evolve over the next ten years. -J.G.
(W&S 10/20; 2,096 cases) §
521723
2017 Napa Valley Benchland Select Caber-
net Sauvignon ^ Stephanie Jacobs focused
this wine on two vineyards in the western
benchlands of Oakville and Rutherford. It's
a bold splash of cool cherry and sour-plum
flavors, the ripeness balanced with freshness,
so that, even as a big, full cabernet, the wine
retains its shape. You could drink it now with
filet mignon, or cellar it for a more complex
pleasure several years from now. - J.G. §
521657
2017 Napa Valley Solomon Lot 70 Caber-
net Sauvignon ^ Founded by Jeff Morgan and
Leslie Rudd, Covenant makes kosher wines
that are not mevushal (heated). And whether
or not you are looking for kosher wine, this
Napa Valley cabernet is worth seeking out.
Jonathan Hajdu made it from the best parcels he worked with in 2017, including Rudd's
WINE & SPIRITS

DECEMBER 2020

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Wine & Spirits - December 2020

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