Wet Mexican leather chairs, a fresh weed-pile, creamy lecithin and lanolin pile into the Sprite-mobile for a cruise down a cedar-plank street delicately lined with eucalyptus and dudes in sweaty leather harnesses. Fruit thin but not meager, perfect polish and patina swelling across the palate into teeth-wiping concentration, decadent mascarpone and 97% chocolate. Brick-wall tannins appear middle and grow to a streamlined finish heavy on thin perfection and bogged down by nothing. I didn’t set out to pick on Santa Barbara tonight, it’s just some of these wines need drinking. This is not one of them. This thing is PERFECTION.
2000 BRANDER ‘Bouchet’ Cab/CF/ME 60/33/7 Santa Ynez Valley Santa Barbara Co. 13.0
Stephen McConnell 
Based on your Brander reviews I finally made it over and tasted. I walked out as a wine club member. I didn’t see any Bouchet but tasted the 2014 Reserve Cab and was thoroughly impressed. I felt like I stepped back in time and place to Northern CA in the early 90’s. Took home a SB too, of course.
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