Wine reviews
Saturated plum and blackberry sauce flavors unfurl slowly, with gorgeous mesquite, espresso and licorice accents keeping pace. Shows a smoldering edge on the finish, while well-embedded acidity gives this weighty wine a fresh edge. Best from 2022 through 2038. 383 cases made.
There are two releases from the Las Piedras Vineyard just outside of St. Helena, the LPV and the Colesworthy. The 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon Beckstoffer Las Piedras Vineyard LPV is a slightly larger production cuvée and has terrific, complex notes of blueberries, bay leaf, blood orange, and liquid violets. I always find a floral note from this vineyard, and it’s certainly present here. Deep, powerful, and opulent on the palate, it has terrific tannins, no hard edges, and a beautiful finish. I love it even today, yet I suspect it will develop even more complexity with 3-4 years of bottle age and keep for two decades.
Lastly, the 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon LPV Beckstoffer Las Piedras Vineyard (which is also the base for the Colesworthy release) is pulled all from Block C and is clone 337, still aging in a mix of new Darnajou and Taransaud barrels. It’s a deep, rich, serious wine that has a huge nose of black, black fruits, graphite, crushed rocks, and chocolate. It doesn’t pull any punches on the palate either and is full-bodied, deep, dense, and straight-up bad ass. It’s an awesome wine in the making, but as with a few of these other 2017s, short-term cellaring is going to be the name of the game.
A barrel sample, the deep garnet-purple colored 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon Beckstoffer Las Piedras Vineyard Lpv has quite an earthy nose to begin, offering black cherry and blueberry pie notions plus touches of dried roses, incense, dusty soil and violets with a waft of dark chocolate. The palate is full-bodied, with great concentration and firm tannins with a touch of chew, finishing long.