1974 Clos du Val Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley

I enjoyed this wine during the first five or six years after its release, but its sterile character is beginning to work against it. Damp cardboard-dominated aromatics are problematic, but some nosing around reveals vague cedar and ripe fruit notes. The color is sound with only slight rust at the edge. At age twenty the creamy richness and fruit the wine possessed when young have taken a back seat to the tannin. This austere wine is drying out and increasingly out of balance.

Author: Robert Parker

Tasted from magnum. Fully mature and holding, but beginning to fade, with spicy, cedary Cabernet flavors. Best to drink up soon.--1974 California Cabernet horizontal. 7,600 cases made.

Author: James Laube