Pride Mountain Vineyards is a stellar producer of Bordeaux varietals who's facility literally straddles the Napa/Sonoma County line high up on Spring Mountain, above St.Helena. Their 2005 Cab is 91% Cabernet Sauvignon and 9% Petit Verdot, comprised of a healthy mix of 58% Napa and 42% Sonoma fruit. The wine was aged for 18 months in 100% French oak before bottling.
The wine is a nice, deep ruby color with a bright edge. The bouquet offers brooding aromas of cassis and black cherry fruit, with accents of hoisin sauce, tobacco, chocolate and toasty oak. The wine is full-bodied and plush on entry, with great concentration and focus and plenty of structure five years off the vine. Intense varietal flavors of cassis, black cherry, blackberry, currant, and anise gain complexity from an undercurrent of chocolate and soy, with tobacco, herb and toast notes following through. The finish shows great length, with persistent pure fruit notes braced by solid but ripe tannins and clove-like French oak.
While mountain fruit is often posed as more refined and elegant than the riper expressions found on the valley floor, this 2005 from Spring Mountain is very powerful - full of deep, concentrated dark fruit flavors and tannins that are supple now, but will certainly allow for another decade of quality aging. Not that there isn't elegance and pedigree in evidence - it is the proverbial 'iron fist in a velvet glove'. Should be available in the $50 range at retail, which is not a bargain, but not unreasonable for such a potent expression of Spring Mountain terroir. A definite steak wine - the hoisin notes married with a balsamic and red wine pan sauce, and a nicely marbled hangar steak helped further soften the maturing tannins.
1 comments:
Cabernet Sauvignon and a bloody steak, sounds a lot like heaven.
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