Pride Mountain Vineyards Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon (1.5 Liter Magnum) 2003
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Winemaker Notes
Our Reserve Cabernet is made from our oldest and most expressive vineyard blocks of Clone 7 Cabernet and is aged in barrel 6 months longer compared to our Pride and Vintner Select cuvees. Deeply concentrated flavors of cassis, black fruit, tar, licorice, and spice satiate the palate and persist with nuanced layering for a minutes long finish. This wine is produced in limited quantities and is made available only to our most loyal customers.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
In contrast, the 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve (14.7% natural alcohol) is an equal part blend of Napa and Sonoma fruit. There is no doubting the Cabernet Sauvignon in this wine! Classic notes of cedarwood, underbrush, licorice, black currants and tobacco leaf are textbook definitions of this varietal. The color is even denser than the Reserve Claret's, and the bouquet offers additional notes of Chinese black tea. Elegant with great acid as well as stunning concentration, richness and a full-bodied mouthfeel, this is another world-class effort that pushes the envelope toward perfection. It is a remarkable success for the vintage, partly due to the fact that the extremes of weather experienced on the valley floor were less problematic for these high altitude sites. It should keep for another 6-10 years.
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Wine Enthusiast
What a wine. Take one of those hugely gooey, famous winemaker Napa Cabs, the kind that melt on your palate like butter on toast or chocolate in a microwave, and add fierce mountain tannins, and this is what you get. A humungous, dry, important Cab, one that desperately needs cellaring. Ten years should do it; 20 might be better. The spicy blackberry and cherry fruit isn't going anywhere.
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Connoisseurs' Guide
Loaded with crème brulee and caramel notes right off the bat, the nose of this compelling effort keeps sweet black cherry fruit in clear focus, and that combination of elements is both outgoing in volume and precociously inviting. Full in feel without the least resort towards heaviness, the wine tastes of mouthfilling, lengthy richness layered over intense yet youthful fruit. Time is clearly on its side, and while the wine has plenty of well-muscled fruit today, it is a lead-pipe cinch to age gracefully with cellaring.
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Wine Spectator
Spice, red currant and blackberry aromas, turning taut and firm on the palate with with mouthcoating tannins. Hints of mocha and vanilla bean add a nice flavor dimemsion and on the finish the fruit and tannins shine through. Best from 2009 through 2014.
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A noble variety bestowed with both power and concentration, Cabernet Sauvignon enjoys success all over the globe, its best examples showing potential to age beautifully for decades. Cabernet Sauvignon flourishes in Bordeaux's Medoc where it is often blended with Merlot and smaller amounts of some combination of Cabernet Franc, Malbecand Petit Verdot. In the Napa Valley, ‘Cab’ is responsible for some of the world’s most prestigious, age-worthy and sought-after “cult” wines. Somm Secret—DNA profiling in 1997 revealed that Cabernet Sauvignon was born from a spontaneous crossing of Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc in 17th century southwest France.
St. Helena is in the heart of the Napa Valley, nestled between Calistoga to the north and Rutherford on its southern border. On its western side, the Mayacamas Mountains guard it from the cooling effects of the Pacific Ocean; to its east stand the Vaca Mountains. In conjunction, these mountain ranges serve to lock in summer daytime heat. But in the evening, cool air from the San Pablo Bay funnels up through the valley, creating very chilly nights. It isn’t uncommon for temperatures to drop 50 degrees, a shift that promotes a balance of sugar ripeness and acidity in wine grapes.
St. Helena contains a plethora of different soil types in a small area, which have been enhanced over centuries by rain runoff from both mountain ranges. Its vineyards cover a variety of terrain, spreading across the bucolic valley floor and its benchlands.
These ideal topographic and climatic growing conditions easily caught the attention of early winemaking pioneers. In fact, St. Helena is the birthplace of Napa Valley’s commercial wine industry. Dr. Crane founded his cellar in 1859, David Fulton in 1860 and Charles Krug in 1861.
Today there are no less than 400 separate vineyards planted within the 12,000 acres that make up the St. Helena appellation.
Revered most for its red wines based on Bordeaux varieties, namely Cabernet Sauvignon, the St. Helena appellation is also a source of superior Syrah, Zinfandel and Sauvignon blanc.