2004 Pluribus Cabernet Sauvignon
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Tasting notes
In the early days of Pluribus the wines weren’t always highly differentiated. That is exactly what comes through here. The 2004 Pluribus is a good wine, but during this era winemaking seems to dominate over vintage and vineyard signatures. For that reason, there is less differentiation in this part of the vertical than there is with some of the more recent wines in this tasting. There is quite a bit of oak, while the edges have softened nicely. Dark red fruit, iron, smoke and leather shape the supple, inviting finish.
Critic scores
Average Score
Stephen Tanzer, Vinous
Stephen Tanzer, Vinous
More reviews and scores
Dark ruby-red. Slightly high-toned aromas of black cherry, licorice, minerals and espresso. Densely packed and distinctly large-scaled, with its deep sweetness nicely leavened by a savory quality. Finishes hugely tannic but chocolatey-sweet and energetic. This wine includes bits of Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Merlot. I suspect that it will continue to harmonize with more bottle aging but it's already very sexy.
(14.5% alcohol): Bright, dark, saturated ruby. Brooding but very pure aromas of licorice, black cherry, violet, minerals, crushed rock, menthol and espresso. Very dense, deep and suave, displaying lovely definition and a light touch to its black fruit and mineral flavors. Not a particularly sweet style but with great finesse to its mid-palate texture and noble tannins. Superb, slowly mounting, very subtle finish. Wonderfully handled Spring Mountain tannins, but the wine is nevertheless quite powerful. Juicy and restrained but harmonious already. This brilliant wine showed a slightly high-toned qualty with aeration.
Perhaps the wine that jumped the most in score from when I first tasted these wines out of bottle in 2008 is the 2004 Pluribus. Rated 94 back in 2008, it’s now a solid 98 and knocking on the door of perfection. This wine comes from a Spring Mountain vineyard northwest of the charming town of St. Helena. It has gorgeous notes of graphite, acacia flowers, blueberry liqueur, scorched earth and hot stones. Reminiscent of a top Graves, it is another full-bodied, rich, concentrated wine with good acidity as well as fabulous purity and concentration. I had not seen the Graves-like character in this wine prior to bottling and post-bottling, but it is there now. This stunner is open for business and its fragrance and suppleness suggest drinking it over the next two decades. A brilliant project of Harlan Estates’ proprietor, Bill Harlan, these single-vineyard wines have been everything a Cabernet connoisseur could ever hope for since they were first released. Amazingly, these wines taste better with age than they did young, which is exactly what Harlan and his winemaking team of Bob Levy and consulting enologist Michel Rolland are trying to prove.