<< Back to All Reviews

2009 Vintage

92-94  Steven Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar May/June 2011
Inky purple. Sexy aromas of redcurrant, cola, Indian spices, mocha and tobacco, with riper hints of chocolate and licorice. Expansive, sweet and deep, offering broad, spice-accented red fruit preserve flavors and a velvety texture. Really perfumes the palate on the persistent finish, which is complicated by notes of tobacco, cola and vanillin oak. Ramey told me that he used a lot of valley floor fruit for this bottling and that he was looking for "good tannins but harmonious ones, and good minerality rather than massiveness."

2008 Vintage

91  Steven Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar May/June 2011
Glass-staining ruby. Expressive aromas of cassis, licorice, violet and smoky minerals, complemented by subtle oak spice. Creamy, broad, sweet and lush but with lively mid-palate energy giving lift to the dark berry and floral flavors. Pliant and seamless cabernet, with firm supporting tannins adding shape and grip to the persistent finish. Ramey told me that this wine was made completely from free-run juice.

90-92  Robert M. Parker Jr.’s The Wine Advocate, December 2010
Probably as strong as the 2007, the 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon Napa has put on weight since last year. It now reveals a thick, opaque purple color in addition to bigger, denser fruit concentration than the ‘07, slightly more tannin and a plush, heady personality filled with notes of chocolate, coffee, espresso roast and black currants. It should age for 6-10 years.

2007 Vintage

92  Steven Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar May/June 2010
Inky ruby. Intensely perfumed bouquet of red- and blackcurrant, dark chocolate and anise, with mounting spiciness. More open-knit and accessible than last year's tasting suggested it would be, offering sweet dark fruit and cherry flavors and building tannins. The fruit takes over on the finish, which echoes the spice and cherry notes. This has turned out better than I expected, perhaps because all of the Larkmead fruit went into this wine in this vintage.

92  Robert M. Parker Jr.’s The Wine Advocate, December 2010
A stunning yet reasonably priced, high end Napa Cabernet Sauvignon is the 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon Napa. The final bottling from the extraordinary Larkmead Vineyard, it boasts a dense purple color as well as a big, sweet bouquet of blueberry and black currant fruit intertwined with licorice, bay leaf, cedar and fruitcake notes. Full-bodied and opulent, this precocious 2007 is drinkable now and should evolve for another 15+ years.

91  Wine Spectator September 30, 2010
Taut, dry and earthy, with cedar, herb, forest floor, dried currant and blackberry flavors that are full-bodied, spicy and expansive, slow to unfold but rewarding. Ends with chewy tannins. Drink now through 2018.

90  California Grapevine, Vol. 36, No. 6, Dec 2010-Jan 2011
Medium-dark ruby; attractive, herbal, spicy, cedary, cassis and blackberry fruit aroma with hints of tar and graphite; medium-full to full body; rich, intense, textured, concentrated, peppery, cassis and dark berry fruit flavors with oaky overtones; full tannin; lingering aftertaste. Needs a few more years of bottle aging. Very highly recommended.

2006 Vintage

91  Steven Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar May/June 09
Bright ruby. Cherry and red berry aromas are complicated by dried rose, tobacco and fresh herbs. Juicy and intense, with gently sweet red and dark berry flavors and slow-mounting tannins. Becomes more floral with air and finishes with impressive clarity and spicy persistence. Eighty percent of the vines that provided this fruit are planted on steep hillsides, Ramey told me.

90  Robert M. Parker Jr.’s The Wine Advocate, December 2008, Issue 180
The 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon is a bigger, deeper effort revealing austere tannins in the finish, but also plenty of chocolaty, black currant fruit intermixed with licorice, roasted herbs, and underbrush.

88 (one puff)  Connoisseurs' Guide to California Wine, Volume 34 Issue 2: December 2009
Ripe and wide open with no pretense to politeness, this potent young Cabernet delivers lots of extracted, chocolate-tinged fruit framed by sweet smoke and spice. It is full and fleshy in feel, yet its steady progression to puckery toughness tags it as a wine to forget for five or more years.

Four stars+  Ronn Wiegand’s Restaurant Wine Issue 133 & 134, Jan/Feb & Mar/Apr, 2010
The Cabernet is fuller and firmer—full bodied and intensely flavored, with rich fruitiness and evident new oak. It is long and moderately tannic on the finish, tasting of cassis, cedar, toast, and spicy oak. [2012-2016] .

2005 Vintage

91  Robert M. Parker Jr.’s The Wine Advocate, December 2007, Issue 174
The 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon Napa exhibits a dense ruby/purple color as well as sweet, tarry, black currant, chocolate, cedar, and wood smoke-like flavors, and decent acidity. Drink it over the next 10-15 years.

90  Steven Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar May/June 08
Opaque ruby. Red- and blackcurrant aromas, with suave floral, tobacco and spice character adding interest. Fleshy, liqueur-like dark berry flavors are soft and round, with no rough edges or obvious tannins. Turns slightly firmer on the long, velvety finish. Ramey told me that this has a pH of 4.0.