2012 Walla Walla Valley Cabernet Sauvignon
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Tasting notes
A total blockbuster, the 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon Walla Walla Valley from Leonetti sports an inky color to go with sensational notes of smoked black fruits, scorched earth, licorice, truffle and hints of asphalt. Big, rich, beautifully concentrated, and textured, it doesn't make any apologies for flavor and is a straight up sensational Cabernet to drink over the coming 2-3 decades.
Critic scores
Jancis Robinson MW
Stephen Tanzer, Vinous
More reviews and scores
Tasted blind. Round and sweet. Very fine Washington Cabernet? Luscious. (JR)
(14.7% alcohol; from multiple sites; aged for 22 months in new and once-used French oak): Bright ruby-red. A real high-pitched essence of Cabernet, offering aromas of black cherry, red berries, bitter chocolate and spices plus a whiff of pungent dried rosemary. Wonderfully deep and sappy wine; more red than black fruit in style and not at all overripe but still darker in character than the Reserve, not to mention more tannic in the early going. This wonderfully aromatic, spicy, bulletproof wine seems set for a long and glorious evolution in bottle.
The 2012 Walla Walla Cabernet Sauvignon is similar to the Reserve, yet slightly more elegant and streamlined at present. Made from 89% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot that spent 22 month in new and once-used French oak, it exhibits terrific aromatics of leafy herbs, spring flowers, violets, lead pencil shavings and ample cassis and black raspberry-style fruit. Full-bodied, seamless and perfectly balanced, with a stacked mid-palate and building tannin, it’s another candidate for short-term cellaring and will have 2-3 decades of overall longevity.