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Tasting notes
The 2021 Maya Proprietary Red Wine is a classic 60/40 split of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc that spent 24 months in 80% new French oak. Ripe red, blue, and black fruit, graphite, liquid flowers, and a liquid rock-like minerality all shine in this quintessential, layered, regal, majestic 2021. It has awesome purity, full-bodied richness, flawlessly polished tannins, and a great finish. This is a legend in the making, and Napa Valley simply doesn’t get any better. It will take a solid decade for this to hit maturity, and it should have 30+ years of prime drinking thereafter.
Critic scores
Average Score
Jonathan Cristaldi, Decanter
Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW, The Wine Independent
More reviews and scores
Kicks off with bitter black chocolate, touches of aniseed and fennel, intense and muscular, takes a beat before the aromatics begin to overlay the powerful black cherry and damson fruits, but they are here, subtle campfire smoke, cold ash, crushed rose petals and liqourice. Great stuff from winemaker Maya Dalle Valle, consultant winemaker Andy Erickson.
It comes from the Maya blocks on the house's southern side combined with Cabernet Franc that abuts the Peter Michael Au Paradis vineyard. A wonderfully dark, opaque ruby colour in the glass leads to fragrant boysenberry and kirsch notes, cedarwood, and rose petals. Full-bodied with super firm and structured tannins that have a pixelated density that would make the latest iPhone jealous. The finish is very long, and even for all the wine's compactness and weight on the palate, there is a lightness to this wine that is striking. Maya Dalla Valle, the daughter of founder Naoko Dalla Valle, is the winemaker with Andy Erickson and Michel Rolland consulting, while Edgar Alfaro manages the vineyards.
The 2021 Maya is young, but so promising. A wine of density and stature, the 2021 offers striking vertical depth, with bright acids and plenty of tannin. All the elements are so well balanced. Intense red fruit, blood orange, cinnamon, new leather and cedar all meld together, but it is the whole rather than the sum of parts that is most impressive here. A blast of vibrant fruit explodes through to the finish. Unforgettable.
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.