2011 HALL Cabernet Sauvignon Stags Leap District
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Tasting notes
Bright medium ruby. Fruity aromas of blackberry, cassis and blueberry are complicated by menthol and pepper. Sweet and slightly high-toned, with dark berry and chocolate flavors counterpointed by a slightly drying herbal note and a tannic edge. I'd drink this over the next several years for its fruit sweetness but I wonder where it can go in bottle.
Critic scores
Average Score
Robert Parker
Stephen Tanzer, Vinous
More reviews and scores
The 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon Stags Leap District is the most overt of the 2011 Hall Cabernets I tasted. The essence of Stags Leap comes through in the wine's rich, blue/black fruit, graphite, white pepper, violet and orange peel notes. Readers will find an exuberant, juicy Cabernet in the 2011 Stags Leap. Hall has done a fabulous job with the Stags Leap, a wine that once again shows the estate's ability to excel with ripe wines that are also impeccably balanced.
The 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon Stags Leap exhibits a dark, saturated ruby/purple color, a green pepper component in the nose, and a narrower mouthfeel and texture. I tasted eight cuvees of 2010 Cabernet Sauvignons from Hall. I will write abbreviated notes on the eight 2012s I tasted, which is a great vintage in Napa. Based on my experience with the Hall wines, they show better from bottle than from barrel samples, always a sign of a high quality winery. All of these wines possess splendid opaque blue/purple colors. A remarkable thing about all of Hall’s 2012s is that they should be accessible when released given the sweetness of the tannins, yet they should have 20-30-year drinking windows. Congratulations to Kathryn Hall. I have been high on her wines since I first tasted them in the offices of David Ramey. It is rewarding to see that she is realizing the enormous potential that accompanied her debut wines. Tel. (707) 967-2626