Pahlmeyer Napa Valley Proprietary Red 2017
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Robert
Parker -
Jeb
Dunnuck
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Winemaker Notes
This 2017 Proprietary Red Napa Valley is a cellar-worthy wine that will reward patience over the next decade or more. Blackberry, leather and Spanish cedar are revealed at first swirl, complemented by subtle hints of dried sage. Dark and opaque, the concentrated, complex palate brings generous notes of summer cherries, wild blackberries, berry compote and figs, layered with Mexican chocolate and freshly scraped vanilla bean. Evolving in the glass, characteristics of plum, brown sugar and spice slowly emerge before a lengthy finish. The best is yet to come for this wine, as its focused intensity and firm, young tannins will age beautifully into sublime texture and fine, velvety tannins.
Blend: 77% Cabernet Sauvignon, 13% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Franc
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Pahlmeyer, bottled at the beginning of September, contains no Petit Verdot or Cabernet Franc this year, as that fruit was smoke tainted. Only Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot made the cut this year. Very deep garnet-purple colored, it delivers provocative blueberry preserves, baked plums and black forest cake scents followed by crème de cassis, dark chocolate, cedar chest and pencil lead with a waft of camphor. Medium to full bodied, the palate delivers impressive intensity with earthy layers offering lots of interest to the intense black fruit preserves, framed by firm, grainy tannins, finishing long with loads of energy.
Rating: 94+ -
Jeb Dunnuck
The 2017 Proprietary Red is mostly Cabernet Sauvignon blended with 13% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Franc, all aged in roughly 90% new French oak. This rich, full-bodied, structured wine has lots of tannin and concentration yet stays beautifully balanced, with ample currants, graphite, truffle, loamy earth, and toasted spice-like aromas and flavors. It’s a terrific 2017 that will benefit from 4-5 years of bottle age and keep for 15-20 years.
Rating: 94+
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Pahlmeyer was founded in 1986, by a desire to be great by its eponymous creator Jayson Pahlmeyer. With a dream to create a California Mouton, Jayson and his partners spared no resource to make this dream a reality. Whether it was finding the perfect piece of land high atop Napa Valley’s Atlas Peak or covertly smuggling in Bordeaux cuttings, all pieces of Pahlmeyer’s history have led to its place as one of the top brand names from Napa Valley. From the very beginning, Pahlmeyer has been dedicated to crafting fine wines from the best fruit sources possible. In California, this means high elevation mountain sites, where the grapes are afforded more sunlight, cooler temperatures, and less fertile soils, which together create ideal conditions. Pahlmeyer sources the majority of their fruit from four key locations: Pahlmeyer Estate (Atlas Peak), Stagecoach (Atlas Peak / Pritchard Hill), Rancho Chimiles, and Antica.
Undoubtedly proving its merit over and over, Napa Valley is a now a leading force in the world of prestigious red wine regions. Though Cabernet Sauvignon dominates Napa Valley, other red varieties certainly thrive here. Important but often overlooked include Merlot and other Bordeaux varieties well-regarded on their own as well as for their blending capacities. Very old vine Zinfandel represents an important historical stronghold for the region and Pinot noir is produced in the cooler southern parts, close to the San Pablo Bay.
Perfectly situated running north to south, the valley acts as a corridor, pulling cool, moist air up from the San Pablo Bay in the evenings during the hot days of the growing season, which leads to even and slow grape ripening. Furthermore the valley claims over 100 soil variations including layers of volcanic, gravel, sand and silt—a combination excellent for world-class red wine production.