Pahlmeyer 2006 Napa Valley Proprietary Red Wine - 375ml (half-bottle)

WA 95pts. - IWC 93pts. - CG 92pts. - According to the Wine Advocate: There are 7,000 cases of the prodigious 2006 Proprietary Red Wine (a blend of 80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Merlot, and the rest Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, and Malbec). Most of the fruit comes from the Stagecoach Vineyard and the Waters Ranch. Sweet, smoky, meaty aromas interwoven with melted asphalt, camphor, blackberry, cassis, and charcoal scents emerge from the complex aromatics. In the mouth, the wine is full-bodied, displaying sweet tannin, a concentrated mouthfeel, and a long, heady finish with substantial fruit, glycerin, and extract. It should drink beautifully for 20 plus years. According to the International Wine Cellar: Good medium ruby. Musky aromas of black raspberry, mocha and smoke. Ripe, lush, seamless and deep; broad for the vintage, with plenty of mid-palate stuffing to support its tannins. This, too, is still youthfully unevolved and will need longer to express its inherent sweetness. Like the 2006 merlot, this merited a score at the high end of my original projected range. According to the Connoisseurs' Guide:81% Cabernet Sauvignon; 10% Merlot; 6% Cabernet Franc; 2% Petit Verdot; 1% Malbec. This latest version of Pahlmeyer's proprietary Napa Valley blend is, as usual, a very big, very deep wine that delivers lots of no-holds-barred richness. Its involving mix of cherries, cassis, dried herbs and very rich oak comes with a certain Merlot-like roundness and immediacy, and it eschews overt tannins even while being very well-balanced. It is already showing a fair sense of complexity, but be assured that there is much more to come, and the smart collector with set it aside for from five to eight years.