Benchmark Wine Group

WA98–100: As for the 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon Beckstoffer Heritage, it is 80% Cabernet Sauvignon from the To Kalon Vineyard and 20% Cabernet Franc from the Dr. Crane Vineyard. It was scheduled to be bottled three months after my visit and is certainly one of the most expensive wines yet offered from B Cellars. An extraordinary and profound effort, this looks to be one of the vintage’s great efforts. Amazing dense opaque purple color offers up extraordinary notes of white flowers, crème de cassis, blackberry, licorice and graphite. The wine hits the palate with full-bodied thunder, but settles down with silky tannins, good acidity for vibrancy and incredible delineation and intensity. This has perfection written all over it, but is not yet in bottle. So, I hate to put extra pressure on B Cellars, but this is magnificent wine that should be a modern-day classic from Napa and evolve for 25-30 more years. P.S. – the fact that this wine is aged in 100% new French oak, and there is little evidence of it, speaks to the extravagant fruit and concentration that these two vineyards have given B Cellars.

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