NAPA VALLEY | CALIFORNIA | $40
As good as it gets for a $40 Cab. Here’s a big full-bodied wine with loads of dark berry and red plum superbly integrated with complex flavors of cedar, licorice, clove and tobacco. Chamois-like texture, supple with some chew, and a long finish. An epic story that begins with panoramic fields of ripe fruit and rapidly transitions to a structured wood-and-earth narrative that reveals intricate spice-and-texture subplots, then an extended coda giving hope this enjoyable tale might never end. An excellent wine. (Reviewed 3/16/12)
