Cade 2013 Howell Mountain Napa Cabernet Sauvignon In 2005, John Conover, Gavin Newsom and Gordon Getty founded CADE Estate Winery on Howell Mountain as a complement to the valley floor terroir of PlumpJack Winery. Like PlumpJack, CADE takes its name from Shakespeare, who used the term to refer to the wine casks or cades used to transport wine from Bordeaux to England in Elizabethan times. Deep purple red with concentrated aromas of black berry fruit and subtle spice, a blend of 87% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7% Petit Verdot and 6% Merlot. The palate blackberry, plum and cacao flavors with pepper and cinnamon, very complex, with cedar notes. Well structured with firm…
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Robert Mondavi Oakville BDX 2012 Robert Mondavi established his namesake winery in 1966 with a vision to create Napa Valley wines that would stand in the company of the world’s finest. He chose To Kalon Vineyard in the heart of the Napa Valley as the home for Robert Mondavi Winery. This first-growth vineyard, located in Oakville, California, is renowned for producing some of the finest wines in the world. A special wine not produced every vintage, BDX presents a different expression of Oakville in a Bordeaux blend of 91% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Cabernet Franc and 1% Petit Verdot. The wine sat on French oak (55% new) for 28 months. Aromas…
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Browne Family Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon 2014 Inspired by the greatness of one man, owner Andrew Brown’s Grandfather, William Bitner Browne, built the winery on standards of integrity and excellence. As a curator of the brightest talent, best vineyards and the divining rod of winning concepts at Precept Wine, where Andrew serves as its CEO, his groundbreaking feats across the wine industry carry through to his own family legacy in wine, Browne Family. Browne Family Vineyards was 15 years in the making before its first vintage ever debuted. Vineyards, winemakers and cellar masters committed to world-class wine production were carefully and deliberately selected to represent the best of the Columbia Valley…
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BV Georges De Latour Cabernet Sauvignon 2011 In 1900, when Georges de Latour’s wife, Fernande, first laid eyes on the land that would become their original Rutherford vineyard, she named it “beau lieu,” or “beautiful place.” Shortly thereafter, de Latour sold his thriving cream of tartar business, bought the four-acre ranch and founded Beaulieu Vineyard with the vision of making Napa Valley wines that would rival those of his native France. When prohibition hit most wineries shuttered, Beaulieu Vineyard increased its business fourfold by selling sacramental wine to the Catholic Church. After the repeal in 1933, Georges de Latour became dedicated to the research and innovation that would bring about…
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Chateau Palmer 2012 Alter Ego In 1938, four Bordeaux families – Sichel, Mähler-Besse, Ginestet, and Miailhe – all active in the Bordeaux fine wine trade – joined together to buy Palmer and restore it to the rank it deserved. Two of these families have since left the estate, leaving the Sichel and the Mähler-Besse families at the helm. Since their acquisition of Château Palmer, the families of shareholders have applied single-mindedly the key principles that contributed to the prosperity of this great wine: authenticity, quality and constancy. Originally from the Netherlands, the Mälher family were successful in the textile and the wine business. Having settled in Bordeaux with his wife…
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La Dame de Montrose 2010 Château Montrose overlooks the Gironde Estuary. In fact, the proximity of this vast body of water (called locally “The River”) is a major advantage. The estuary is responsible for maintaining a mild microclimate and toning down extremes of temperature. Helped by the presence of nearby marshes, it provides remarkable air conditioning in the summer while also compensating for the severities of winter. The large gravel found throughout the estate’s topsoil originated in mountains in the Massif Central and the Pyrenees. These pebbles absorb the sun’s heat during the daytime and release it at night. This is an important way of improving the maturity of the…
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Calon Ségur Saint-Estèphe 2010 Perhaps because it is one of the oldest estates in the Médoc, or perhaps because its most emblematic owner, the Marquis de Ségur, built an absolute legend around Calon. Historians date the origins of Calon back to the Gallo-Roman era. Its name is derived from the term “calones”, which were small transport boats that travelled up and down the Gironde estuary. Wine growing at the estate can be traced back to the 12th century, but it was in the 18th century, at the time of Nicolas-Alexandre the Marquis de Ségur, who also owned Latour, Lafite and Mouton, that the finest chapter of the property’s history was…
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Far Niente Oakville Cabernet Sauvignon 2012 One of California’s oldest wineries, Far Niente was founded in 1885 by John Benson, a forty-niner of the California gold rush and uncle of the famous American impressionist painter, Winslow Homer. The winery flourished until Prohibition, at which time it was abandoned and fell into complete disrepair. The stately stone shell of a winery was purchased in 1979 by Gil Nickel, as part of his quest to create a world class wine estate in the Napa Valley. During restoration, the original name, Far Niente, romantically translated to “without a care,” was found carved in stone on the front of the building, where it remains…
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Chateau Lynch Bages 1995 & 2013 Although there are records of the Bages territory as far back as the 16th century, the history of wine production in the area really began in the 18th Century. From 1749 to 1824, the vineyard was owned by Thomas Lynch, the son of an Irishman from Galway who worked as a merchant in Bordeaux. Thomas Lynch managed the land wisely and produced high quality wines under the name of ”Cru de Lynch”. As part of the prestigious 1855 Classification, for the Exposition Universelle de Paris, his wine would soon be classified as one of the fifth growths. I recently went to a Private…
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Dominus Christian Moueix 2012 In the late 1960s, while attending the University of California at Davis, Christian Moueix fell in love with the Napa Valley and its wines. Son of Jean-Pierre Moueix, the famed wine merchant and producer from Libourne, France, Moueix returned home in 1970 to manage the family vineyards, including Chateaux Petrus, La Fleur-Petrus, Trotanoy in Pomerol and Magdelaine in Saint Emilion. His love of Napa Valley lingered and in 1981, he discovered the historic Napanook vineyard, a 124-acre site west of Yountville that had been the source of fruit for some of the finest Napa Valley wines of the 1940s and 1950s. In 1982, Moueix entered into…