2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Beckstoffer Dr Crane Vineyard
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Tasting notes
This is a muscular and tannic young wine with blueberry and hazelnut character. Full-bodied yet fresh and fruity with pretty freshness and tightness. Needs three or four years to come around. Try after 2022.
Critic scores
Average Score
Antonio Galloni, Vinous
James Suckling
More reviews and scores
The 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Beckstoffer Dr. Crane Vineyard is bright, lifted and sensual, as is so common with wines from this site in St. Helena. Floral overtones, expressive red-toned fruit and silky tannins are some of the signatures in this very pretty and inviting mid-weight Cabernet. Today, the Dr. Crane is perhaps a touch linear, so readers should be prepared to cellar it for at least a few years.
The deep garnet-purple colored 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Beckstoffer Dr Crane Vineyard features beautiful violets, rose hip tea and mossy bark scents over a core of ripe blackcurrants, black cherries and plum preserves with touches of mocha, iron ore and Indian spices. Full-bodied and wonderfully balanced in the mouth, the palate delivers layer upon layer of black fruits, earth and exotic spices notions with a firm, velvety frame and epically long, mineral-laced finish. 825 cases produced.
The 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Beckstoffer Dr. Crane Vineyard is very, very young but it has all the qualities that make wines from this site so compelling. Lifted, perfumed and gracious, the 2016 is all finesse. This is one of the finest, young Dr. Crane Cabernets I have tasted with Paul Hobbs in some years.
About the producer
Paul Hobbs is one of California wine’s biggest names. Twice named Wine Personality of the Year by Robert Parker, he joined Robert Mondavi in 1977, worked at Opus One and Simi before setting up his eponymous winery in 1991.