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Tasting notes
The 2014 Maya is superb. Pliant and resonant in the glass, it is another impressive wine from the Dalla Valle family. The Maya offers striking depth, with nearly seamless contours and magnificent balance, all in the more delicate style of the year. Black cherry, incense, tobacco, espresso, menthol and dried flowers open with time in the glass, but it is the wine's balance, its overall harmony, that I find most captivating. After all these years, the 2014 Maya finally expresses all the potential it first showed as a young barrel sample. Andy Erickson made one of the wines of the vintage here. Magnificent.
Critic scores
Average Score
Robert Parker, Wine Advocate
Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW, The Wine Independent
More reviews and scores
The 2014 Maya is deep garnet in color. Scents of black cherries, dried sage, and preserved plums spill from the glass, followed by wafts of fallen leaves, tapenade, and dusty soil. The medium to full-bodied palate delivers taut, savory-laced black fruits and firm, grainy tannins, finishing with a lively lift.
It is excellent, but not one of the great efforts from this iconic winery situated on the eastern Vaca hillsides above the Oakville corridor. That said, the 2014 Maya Proprietary Red may not be as perfect as the 2013 was, but it is a fabulous effort. Finishing at 14.6% alcohol, this wine (generally a blend of about 60% Cabernet Franc and the rest Cabernet Sauvignon) has incredibly gorgeous aromatics of black and blue fruits, forest floor, violets, and an almost Graves-like, scorched earth, gravelly nuance. The wine hits the palate with a full-bodied richness and terrific harmony among its structural elements such as alcohol, acidity, tannin and wood, with moderately sweet tannins in the finish. It is a good 30- to 35-year wine, as most Mayas have tended to be, and is impressive and surprisingly structured for a 2014. Forget it for 3-4 years and drink it over the following 35-40 years.
About the producer
Dalla Valle Vineyards was founded in 1986 by Naoko and her late husband Gustav Dalla Valle, in Oakville. Initially they had wanted to create a luxury resort, but when they discovered the potential of the site, they changed tack and decided to make wine.