2017 Spottswoode Cabernet Sauvignon Estate
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Tasting notes
89% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7% Cabernet Franc, 4% Petit Verdot. Aged for 20 months in French oak barrels (60% new). Especially deep purplish crimson right out to the rim. Not much nose yet. But if you dig, there is an iodine note buried in there. Rich and ripe with a dry finish. Quite a bit of ripe tannin. A certain stoniness. Glamorous bordeaux? (JR)
Critic scores
Average Score
The Wine Advocate
Jancis Robinson MW
More reviews and scores
Lighter in hue and less generously fruited than many other recent vintages, Spottswoode's 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon is minty and red-fruited, with cherries dominating the nose and medium-bodied palate. In this tasting, it came across as slightly herbal and astringent on the finish, so perhaps it's merely going through a closed phase in its evolution and will improve from here.
One of the wines of the vintage, the 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon Estate shows what a great terroir and winemaking team can do even in very challenging vintages. Offering full-bodied aromas and flavors of jammy cassis and blackberry fruits as well violets and tobacco, it has wonderful tannins, a seamless texture, and a good spine of acidity. This is a classic, balanced, impeccably put-together Spottswoode that will keep for 25-30 years.
Spottswoode’s 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon has been simply tremendous on both occasions I have tasted it so far. Sweet red cherry, red plum, flowers and mint give the 2017 striking freshness to complement its decidedly mid-weight structure. The intense heat of the vintage caused ripening to slow down and yielded a wine with just 13.7% alcohol, which is low for both the estate and Napa Valley in general. Spottswoode was one of the first estates in the valley to adopt a more moderate approach to farming and that really paid off in 2017, as a wine of this level in that year could have only resulted from impeccable farming. In a word: magnificent! (AG)
About the producer
Spottswoode is one of those rare Napa estates whose reputation rests less on volume or spectacle than on persistent exactitude. Set on the western edge of St Helena, where the Mayacamas rise and afternoon breezes temper the valley’s warmth, the vineyard occupies a favoured pocket of the appellation.