|
|
Wine Recommendation
Grgich Hills Cellar
2004 Cabernet Sauvignon, Estate(Napa Valley)
Most of the fruit for this wine comes from Ggrich’s dry-farmed Yountville vineyard, which went biodynamic the year before. The remainder of the fruit was sourced from the estate’s organic parcels in Rutherford and Calistoga.
This is a classic Bordeaux-blended wine, apparently made with little intervention. The red fruit, which has some sweetness and some dried qualities, is in check, in that it’s perfectly ripe without being over-blown. There is a touch of mint and dried herbs in the nose. The wine is nearly perfectly balanced with beautiful acidity, and a bit of astringency on a long finish. Hold onto it for a year to allow it to settle down and then drink it over the next dozen years.
The alcohol, listed at 14.7 percent, is not a factor here. The wine spent 21 months in French oak, 60 percent of which was new. There were about 14,000 cases produced.
Reviewed February 21, 2008 by Alan Goldfarb.
Other reviewed wines from Grgich Hills Cellar
The Wine
Winery: Grgich Hills Cellar |
The Reviewer
Alan Goldfarb
Alan Goldfarb has been writing about and reviewing wine for 17 years. His reviews have been published in the St. Helena Star, San Jose Mercury, San Francisco Examiner, Decanter, and Wine Enthusiast, among others. Not once has he used a point system, star system, or an iconic symbol to quantify a wine. What counts in Mr. Goldfarb’s criteria when judging a wine is: how it tastes in the glass; is it well-constructed; its food compatibility; and presence of redeeming regional attributes. |