This is a beautiful wine that competes at the top of the Cali cab world. Huge with vanilla, creme de casis, typical big boy lusciousness, and gobs of fruit. The palate is full, but not quite thick. Fortunately it is balanced by plenty of acidity and a good amount of tannic structure. It drinks well now, but I expect it to be outstanding in a few years as the acidity, tannins, and fruit all come into even better balance. I was pleased to find no discernible overt alcohol on the palate which I have found often on the big Cali cabs in general. The wine is in balance, just everything is big. I look forward to putting this into blind tastings! It’s too bad this is the last vintage.
I like this wine better than the Caymus SS for which I paid twice the price.
Dan still has some (although I scarfed a good amount today) if you want to try it out.
I had another bottle of the 06 tonight in a somewhat blind format, but it was horribly corked and stood out like a sore thumb to even wine novices. Last week the 06 competed favorably in a similar format with the 06 Maybach which speaks volumes in my book. It ended up losing out to the Maybach, but there was lots of discussion and the victory was not decisive.
Probably should do a separate thread, but the 06 Realm Bard tonight was great! I was just disappointed the Two Hands couldn’t even come out to play under the circumstances.
