Bright ruby out to a clear rim with basically no brick. Astonishing for a 20YO wine. Full, round, kinda flabby nose of deep cherry–slightly polished and candied–but very little tertiary. Banana and warm tropical fruit fill the bouquet not horribly unlike modern more-homogenous Napa Cabs do on release. What oldish-smells there are are wound down into rather simple berry stew, no spice, no greenry, no euc, no mint, no minerality, no citrus–just polished thick dark fruit.
Tasting it also presents a rather simple wine. It would be interesting to taste this on release to see how much of this could be predicted. It’s not bad wine. It’s gorgeous. But it is a simple wine, at absolute PEAK, and even now, the fruit drops off a bit in the finish, revealing mostly heat, but a little wiry tannin. The finish is a dry, thin affair, CLEARY displaying its age.
2000 EDGEWOOD ESTATE Cabernet Sauvignon Lewelling Vyd St. Helena Napa Valley 14.9
Stephen McConnell 