Classic California Cabernets: A 10th anniversary Celebration !!!!
Join us as we taste through the sexiness of one of Napas most balanced vintages
Join Chef Ryan Smith of Fork and Saber as he teams up with wine expert and founder of executive wine seminars Bob Millman. Bob has amassed a wealth of knowledge after decades spent in the wine industry. We are excited to join him in a passionate discussion as we taste our way through this sexy vintage of Cab!
"The 2009 Napa Valley Cabernets, beautifully balanced wines from a mild growing season without weather extremes, are aging slowly and gracefully, with the better examples still short of their peaks, proving once again how well the best Napa Valley Cabernets can develop with time in bottle." Steve Tanzer, Vinous Media
Recently, Vinous Media published Steve Tanzer’s detailed analysis of the 2009 California Cabernet. He liked what he tasted pretty much across the board.
We thought that this would be an ideal time to feature 8 Classic Cabernets, each highly rated by Tanzer. First let’s define a Classic California Cabernets: They must come from a first class winery that has been making Cabernets for 25 vintages or more. This means that their style and goals were established before the Cult Cabs started to come into prominence on the 1990s. Several including Dunn, Montelena and Ridge take us back to the 60 and 70s, almost the dawn of high-end California wines. Below are the eight wines with Tanzer’s scores, Tanzer is in our opinion the best, most reliable and honest of the wine reviewers in the last 30 years. A conservative scorer, a 94 from Tanzer is equivalent to a 97 or more from Parker and Suckling. Below the 8 wines we will tasted are listed alphabetically with Tanzer’s score in parenthesis.
1. Dominus (94)
2. Dunn Howell Mountain (94)
3. Chateau Montelena (94)
4. Pride Spring Mountain Reserve (94)
5. Phelps Insignia (94)
6. Ridge Montebello (92+)
7. Spottswoode (4)
8. Verite La Jolie (95+)