TN: 2001 Pride Mountain Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve

WINE TALK
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2001 Pride Mountain Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve - USA, California, Napa Valley (12/1/2022)
One of my favorite wineries back in the day, mailing lister from the 90's to I believe 2007...just went away from Ca Cab, and have been bitter sweetly drinkin off the lone survivors. Youngest daughter turned 20 today...no more 2002's, so this was close. Still dark liqueured berry fruit with a good dose of dusty spiced oak barrel...REALLY dusty like being in a cedar mill! Creamy and silky with refined tannins...tart cherry skin lift...wonderful complexities of dried tobacco leaf, cocoa powder, red licorice, chocolate covered espresso beans, creme de cassis...finish is sneaky spicy, and structure is solid and youthful...might be a little too much for the lumber averse. Fantastic bottle...makes me wish I had never left the list. (95 points)

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Nice note Brian! I know what you mean by the lumber-averse. I didn’t have any experience with Pride and had been sitting on a 2012 Cab Franc until earlier this year. I didn’t appreciate that the style that was such that the fruit had faded and all that was left was the oak chocolate notes you describe.

Had I bothered to understand that in advance I would have drunk it far sooner, when it stil had fruit! Still wouldn’t have been ‘my’ style but at least I would have caught it at it’s best place.

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And thank you for showing me I misspelled averse!:joy:

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Pride and Paloma are two I wished I had not dropped. A few of the Prides show up at Total these days.

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You know its funny as these wines age how different years and different bottles can show so differently. I had the 2001 in February and the 2002 a couple of months later. The 2001 I had was exceptional, and not dominated with that “cedary-oak” note, the echo of which I can psychosomatically smell even just describing it. It was nearly perfectly balanced with enough bright fruit and remaining acid to pair perfectly with the remaining soft tannins. Had it at a wine get together and it was unanimous wine of the night. The 2002, by contrast, had some of that big cedar pop and its fruit lacked a bit of the same brightness. Wonderful bottles when they’re on, but if I’m backfilling, I’m going way heavier on 2001 than 2002.

Cheers