2016 Dalla Valle Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley, California (750ml)   

Dalle Valle Cabernet Sauvignon is one of a minority of high end Napa Valley Cabernets that truly warrant their impressive price tag. The wines always show tremendous polish and sophistication with pure, concentrated fruit, silky tannins and a seamless finish.

When you add another amazing vintage of 2013 to the equation it becomes an extraordinary wine. As winemaker, Andy Erickson, notes "The Cabernet Sauvignon offering from our Oakville Estate is dazzling in its purity, depth, concentration, and balance. The intensity of this vintage shows immediately in the wine, with its black-purple hue and notable viscosity. The fruit arrived at the winery in pristine condition, a relatively light crop of small, flavor-packed berries...The resulting wine went directly to barrels, where it aged for 22 months, before being bottled without fining or filtration. The final blend— Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Petit Verdot—is phenomenally dark in color, and while it is rich in tannin and extract, the texture is silky, polished and long. In its youth, the wine is showing notes of mocha, cassis, black cherry, clay, and smoke. On the palate the fruit and spices are very generous, even at this stage, and these flavors crescendo on the finish, with ample acidity helping lengthen the impression. It is a classic vintage."