1994 Cabernet Sauvignon Pritchard Hill

(15.2% alcohol): Good deep red with ruby highlights. Game, truffle, currant and sweet oak on the iniviting nose. Plush and sweet on entry, then a bit green in the middle, with herb, truffle and tobacco leaf flavors dominating underlying redcurrant, plum, floral pastilles and spicecake. Round and ample but also has lift. In a very ripe style and delicious right now. The tannins are resolved but this wine still has plenty of fruit.

Incense, smoke, burnt toast, coffee bean, jammy blackberry and prune scents produce the aromatics. On the palate, the wine is rich, fat, plush and oaky, the fruit is ripe, but there is a lot of wood in the wine that will appeal to some tasters more than others. There is more fruit than wood, and there is enough lushness and sweet red berries to keep the wine interesting. But the oak is still quite present. 93 Points

A potentially perfect wine, the 1994 Cabernet Sauvignon boasts a fabulous nose of cassis, cream, blueberries, violets, minerals, and spice. It smells like a hypothetical blend of a great vintage of L'Evangile, Clinet, and Mouton-Rothschild. The opaque purple/black color is followed by a full-bodied wine stacked and packed with fruit, glycerin, and extract. No component part is out of place in this formidably endowed, remarkably well-balanced wine. The purity, richness, sweetness and depth of fruit suggest that the wine's potential is limitless. Much like its cellarmate, the 1994 Colgin Cabernet Sauvignon (also made by Helen Turley), the Bryant Family Vineyard's 1994 should evolve into one of California's legendary Cabernets. It will age effortlessly for 25-30 years. Tel. (314) 231-8066; Fax (314) 231-4859 P.S. The only way of purchasing this wine is to get on the winery's mailing list.