Review by Stephen Tanzer
Rating: (97+)
84% Cabernet Sauvignon): Healthy, bright ruby-red. Multidimensional nose offers scents of blackcurrant, blackberry, brown spices and graphite minerality accented by herbs and pepper. At once plush and sharply focused, showing lovely reserve and energy to its dark fruit, mineral and soil flavors. I find this to be downright Pauillac-like. Finishes with strong but fine-grained late-arriving tannins and outstanding slowly building length. A great Cabernet- based wine that’s already remarkably complex and elegant but has a glorious future ahead of it. As Blankiet did not deleaf the vines, the fruit was not burned by the heat spikes in late August and September in this essentially cool year. I tasted this magnum four days later and it was even better. One of the finest and most complete California Cabernets I’ve tasted in recent years.
