Wine reviews

October 2014

The best of the 2012 trio, and that’s saying something as they’re all impressive, is the 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon Beckstoffer Las Piedras Vineyard. This one exhibits more minerality and lots of spring flowers in addition to blueberry, blackberry and dark raspberry fruit. It is loaded, full-bodied and opulent, with voluptuous texture and terrific purity, power of presence and length. This is a stunner from winemaker Mike Smith. Drink it over the next decade or more. I’ll keep my notes short on the 2013s, as they’ll be reviewed from bottle in a year. But they are all 100% Cabernet Sauvignon and I suspect the alcohol levels are relatively in line with the 2012s, which were all around 15.1%- 15.2%.