2019 TOR Cabernet Sauvignon Melanson Vineyard

The 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Melanson Vineyard is one of the clear highlights in this range from Tor. Rich and creamy in the glass, the 2019 is endowed with tremendous purity of fruit matched with tannins that are unusually silky for this rugged hillside site. Nothing in particular stands out. Instead, it is the wine's stunning balance that makes the deepest impression. Time brings out gorgeous inner perfume and aromatic presence. Superb.

There are six barrels of the 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Melanson Vineyard, a 100% varietal from a great site on Pritchard Hill, just across the valley from Colgin. Its saturated purple hue is followed by a beautiful perfume of cassis and blackberry fruits as well as tobacco, scorched earth, and graphite, with an almost Graves-like gravelly earth character emerging with time in the glass. It is rich, full-bodied, and powerful, with lots of ripe tannins, terrific overall balance, and a serious, age-worthy style that still offers pleasure even today. It's worth giving bottles 2-4 years in the cellar, and it's going to shine for over two decades.

100% Cabernet Sauvignon from the Melanson vineyard in Pritchard Hill – a very steep vineyard with rows running up and down the hill. Its rocky face looks down at Napa Valley’s floor. Higher elevation and afternoon breezes coming from the Pacific cool the vineyard in the warm afternoons. The mountain site is rugged, the loam soil studded with volcanic rock. At an average elevation of 1,200 feet, the vineyard sits above the fog line and benefits from maximum sun exposure all day. Aged in 100% new Taransaud barrels. Very dark with a black core. Savoury, rock-like and intense with flavours of deep black fruit and black olives. Tannins are deep and thick in youth but likely to become velvety with age. Remarkably fresh for such a powerful and concentrated wine. So much depth to those deliciously dry tannins. (JH)