2006 Corison Cabernet Sauvignon St. Helena
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Tasting notes
The 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon Sunbasket Vineyard shows the extroverted side of this site so well. Ripe and effusive, the 2014 offers up copious dark red-toned fruit, cedar, spice and pipe tobacco. Succulent fruit and plush, silky tannins are classic Sunbasket. This is St. Helena in a bottle. (Drink between 2024-2034)
Critic scores
Average Score
Jancis Robinson MW
James Suckling
More reviews and scores
A balanced cabernet with violet, fresh tobacco, black currant and blueberry. Forest berries too. Medium to full body, lightly chewy tannins and a fresh finish. Balanced and flavorful. Delicious now.
Good bright, full ruby. Spicy dark plum, redcurrant and cherry aromas complicated by menthol, lavender and leather. In a very closed stage today, with moderately sweet bitter cherry and dark chocolate flavors currently muted by an impression of slightly tart acidity. The finish is reasonably long but distinctly medicinal today, with an obvious herbal element. Will this expand with time in bottle? Corison normally picks her cabernet during the second or third week of September, but in 2006 the harvest was nearly a month later.
This was a difficult wine to fully analyze. It exhibits plenty of good things, such as a dark ruby/purple color and black fruit, graphite, earth, and wood spice characteristics. A wine of elegance, restraint, and flawless winemaking, it remained somewhat muted and monolithic no matter how much aeration and coaxing I gave it. Perhaps the tannins of the 2006 vintage are keeping it in a more closed down state at present. It has 15 or more years of aging potential. Tel. (707) 963-0826
About the producer
Cathy Corison is one of Napa’s leading lights – a matriarch of the region who crafts defiantly elegant Cabernet Sauvignon from her old vines on the benchland between Rutherford and St Helena. These refined, long-ageing wines are some of Napa’s most impressive.