Joseph Phelps, Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon

Joseph Phelps, Napa Valley Cabernet SauvignonThe 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon boasts lovely cigar box like French oak, with delicate touches of cedar and vanilla accenting black cherries and cassis. Medium to full bodied, this is ripe and approachable but not soft or flabby. Concentrated and structured, it's a solid "entry level" Napa Cab, simultaneously juicy and velvety on the finish. It's a blend of multiple vineyards, from Calistoga down nearly to Coombsville.

A very ripe

camphor and incense

This is also openly floral with hints of herbal tea adding breadth to the intensely earthy and brooding nose of mostly dark berry fruit aromas

75 ha parcel of vines averaging 35 to 40 years of age)

but it's gorgeously perfumed

which I wouldn’t be surprised to see benefit from 12-15 years in bottle

107 bottles and some larger formats produced

balanced and youthfully austere finish

dried mandarin peel

(90-93)/2032+

It is an astounding wine and proof that very quickly after release these wines morph into shades of what they will become in older age

It shows considerable freshness in its dark red fruit