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.

The wine showed a dark ruby almost opaque color. Blackberry, raspberry preserves, cassis, licorice, vanilla, oak and whiffs of eucalyptus all arrived on the nose. Black cherry, raspberry, vanilla, cassis, licorice, oak and eucalyptus followed on a palate teeming with black cherry. The wine was full-bodied and exhibited good length along with moderate tannins. This wine would be an ideal pair for a seared dry-aged New York strip steak.

Garnet red. Ripe dark red berry and plum with vanilla and cedar show on the nose. Richer and fuller than the 2008 vintage, it’s softer on the attack with more notable ripeness than the 2010. Attractive cedary spice is married to spicy huckleberry, plum and cassis on the palate. There are fine firm tannins on the finish.