2021 Cabernet Sauvignon / 90 Points / James Suckling

This annual post looks back at all the wines I wrote about in the previous year and singles out 50 that I thought were great wines. “Great” doesn’t necessarily imply the most profound, though several of these are as profound as wine gets; nor does it necessarily mean that these are the world’s famed wines intended for laying down in cellars for long aging. I don’t usually encounter such wines anyway.

Showing a multifaceted bouquet of dark red fruit and earthy tobacco, the 2013 Cab is a bit lighter than the 2016 vintage, but it offers lots of sweet dark fruit flavors accompanied by notes of pepper and tobacco. There’s well integrated oak and a persistent finish with solid tannins. A great steak wine. 

This full-bodied wine brings together flavors of black cherry and black olive, with substantial spiciness from oak and moderate tannins for a lip-smacking texture. Hints of vanilla, cedar and clove accompany the black fruit notes, adding complexity and interest.

More elegant than blockbuster, the 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon is  an excellent wine. The bouquet is redolent of dark cassis complemented by notes of earth and underbrush. There’s a lovely, silky texture to the mouth filling palate and nice integration of blackberry fruit and toasted oak.  The tannins are still youthful but ripe. A wine that will only improve with a couple of years bottle age.

Saturated ruby. The bouquet reveals explosive cassis and cedar aroma. The palate is silky and dense with sweet, expansive dark fruit flavors and a light earthy note. Well focused and tightly structured with still firm tannins finishing with lingering rich dark red fruit notes.