TN: 2009 Bressler Cabernet Sauvignon

Showing better than my last bottle, over a year ago. Medium-to-full bodied and quite elegant. The palate is full of red and black fruits offering a surprising degree of freshness despite being 9 years old. There’s a blanket of fine grained tannins on the back end that provide a sense of grip and lead to a long, dusty finish. Excellent. (93 pts)

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I have not seen a Bressler TN in a long time. Used to be a darling of the eBob board, and I liked the wine too.

I loved the 04 and the 2000 was the best wine I sampled from that vintage.

The 2005 was fantastic, but my last bottle, about a year ago, was showing just a tad past prime.

Andrew thanks for posting this. Always loved the Bressler wines - this was a good reminder I need to open one soon. Was very sorry they decided to stop production.

I own a couple bottles of this - long time buyer of Bressler cabs and always enjoy. Wish the pricing hadn’t climbed.

They will be missed. In the meantime, don’t ignore their second wine–Young Vines. The 2013 is shockingly good.

Ray are they currently producing Young Vines I thought they stopped producing completely and decided to sell the fruit?

Yes, Karen, you’re right. I just meant that fans of Bressler should take advantage of the Young Vines while it is available. 2013-2015 are all still in the marketplace.

The pricing climbed $20 in 15 years. That should be commended.

Got it thanks!

I just served my last bottle of 2001 paired with a 2001 Karl Lawrence. Both were perfectly on point with the nod going to Bressler. If I ever see either of them at auction I’ll make a move to get

One of our favorite wines for sure. We were lucky to try a 2000 which was their first vintage last weekend in Napa. It was in great shape with no signs of declining. A great wine for the vintage. We shared a bottle of the 12 last night with friends. They are not Cali Cab fans and they couldn’t stop talking about how much they enjoyed it. The 12 is a beauty and needs some decanting.

I do love these wines and will miss purchasing them. I believe selling the fruit and retiring from the day to day aspect was probably not too hard of a call.

Actually, my first direct purchase was the '04 cab and that was $75. The 06 was $85 and then the 2012 was $95 (offered in Jan 2016). While I have no idea what happened before I started buying, during my 8 years of buying directly from the winery, the cab went from $75-$95, hence my comment. I consider a $75 cab (plus shipping) to be something I am comfortable buying in quantity and opening fairly regularly. Once it gets to the $100 range, that’s a very different realm IMO.

No one is a fan of cost increases but they were $85 for a long time. I doubt any of us pay the same for anything we were purchasing 5 years ago. Every business has had to absorb higher costs to produce their products. Labor, insurance, storage, barrels, etc I imagine went up more than the $10 per bottle increase covered.

I think we’re all sensitive when a wine rises sharply in cost based on a big score or WOTY from WS :slight_smile: but everyone has to raise prices at some point for it to make business sense to produce what you’re selling. Their vineyard is in a prime spot in St Helena next to Crane, Las Piedras, etc. I can imagine the demand for their fruit made it a pretty easy decision instead of raising prices to well over $100 to keep up with market prices.


Anyone know who they’re selling their fruit to?

Andrew- I believe Anomly wines

Ah, yes, that does ring a bell, Fred. Thanks.

Hi Fred - I have a pretty good understanding of economics, and agree that prices inevitably rise. I am not one to generally complain about wine prices. I was simply lamenting that the cost of the wine had gotten to the point (in an 8 year period, not 15, for me) where I had to view it in terms of other similarly priced ($100) wines and it became less of an automatic buy. YMMV

Sherri- understood and I have the same issue with many Napa wine these days when you compare to what you can get in other regions. I have to think at some point consolidation or reckoning will eventually happen.

Cheers