1987 EISELE CAB HORIZONTAL - No. 9 Millerton (5/18/2014)
We had high hopes to see how Barbara and Milt Eisele, owners and namesakes of one of California’s greatest vineyards, chose to express the 1987 vintage when making wine on their own, in comparison to the well-established Joseph Phelps Cab. The delicious but intellectually disappointing answer was “just like Phelps.”
-
1987 Eisele Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon From the Vineyards of Barbara and Milt Eisele Eisele Vineyard - USA, California, Napa Valley
Textbook warm-vintage old-style Cali Cab at peak. Tons of sweet blackcurrant and pine needle. Very fragrant. Midweight, excellent acidic balance, long, smooth, seamless. Lacks the distinctiveness to merit a higher score, but an archetype of the genre. (92 pts.) -
1987 Joseph Phelps Cabernet Sauvignon Eisele Vineyard - USA, California, Napa Valley
Very similar to the Barbara & Milt Eisele Vineyards Cab of the same vintage it was tasted alongside–we had a lot of trouble keeping them straight. This has a bit more cedar and mint alongside the sweet cassis, a little plusher and plumper, possibly slightly redder-fruited, with less prominent acid and maybe a bit shorter. But I’m grasping at straws here: the producers clearly played the hand the vineyard and vintage dealt them in roughly the same way. As with the other wine, I’d peg this blind as an outstanding traditionally made Cali Cab from a ripe year aged 20-30 in a heartbeat, but wouldn’t have been able to say anything more detailed. Great typicity, not much specificity. (92 pts.)
Posted from CellarTracker
