Saturated ruby-red. Wild, gamey aromas of black cherry, black olive, tobacco and iron. Lush, thick and sweet, with a lovely pliant texture. Cherry and raspberry flavors complicated by slightly sauvage notes of roasted meat, tobacco and minerals. Very long but still a bit disjointed on the finish. I'd give this cabernet a few more years in the bottle before pulling the cork.

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The 1997 Cabernet Sauvignon has to be one of the great buys left for profound Napa Cabernet. He's done the aging for you, and of course the wine is still an adolescent in terms of aging potential. Brilliant notes of cedar, spice box, cassis, smoke, and licorice soar from the glass, as if this wine were pretending to be a first-growth Pauillac. Full-bodied, powerful, still with a boatload of tannin to resolve, and just a faint lightening of the dense purple color at the rim, this is a brilliant wine from a vintage that produced relatively quick-evolving wines, but no such thing is tolerated at Philip Togni. This is a great Cabernet Sauvignon with the exuberance, purity, and richness of fruit that Napa provides, but with a Bordeaux structure that Togni, with his Bordeaux upbringing, somehow builds into the wine.

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Definitely an earthy, beefy and leathery red, but that's just part of the story as its mineral, currant, berry and cedar notes grow in complexity and turn elegant, yet retain a hearty, rustic edge. 2,230 cases made.

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