2018 Cabernet Sauvignon Pritchard Hill

Aromas of blackberries and gun powder with some graphite and black licorice. Tile, too, with some conifer and cedar. Complex and enticing. Full-bodied with polished tannins that build on the palate and coat and caress every millimeter of your mouth. Encompassing and balanced mouth feel. A classic beauty. Really tells where it is from! Great estate red. 600 cases. Try after 2027, but already a joy to taste.

The flagship 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon is pure perfection, and classic, finesse, and structure-driven Napa Cabernet doesn’t get any better. This full-bodied, concentrated effort is more masculine and mineral-laced compared to the prettier Bettina cuvée, yet it still has incredible elegance, building, seamless tannins, no hard edges, and simply nothing out of place. Offing notes of cassis, lead pencil, spice box, crushed stone, and hints of flower, it builds beautifully with air and is a wine that always seems to offer something new every time you come back to the glass. Hats off to proprietor Bettina Bryant and winemaker Kathryn Carothers (aka “KK”) for a legendary Napa Valley Cabernet that will evolve for 30-40 years.

Composed of 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon was aged in French oak, 75% new, and bottled in July 2020. Very deep purple-black in color, it needs a fair bit of swirling to unlock beautifully pure notions of baked plums, blackcurrant pastilles, black raspberries and boysenberries with fragrant suggestions of violets, iron ore, tilled soil, tree bark and wild fungi plus a touch of garrigue. The medium to full-bodied palate is very tightly knit with exquisitely pixilated, very fine tannins and great tension supporting the intense, wonderfully nuanced fruits, finishing very long and very minerally. 616 cases were made.