2013 Bryant Family Cabernet Sauvignon
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Tasting notes
The inky, opaque colored 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon is a backward, brute of a wine that’s packed with potential, but is going to need some serious bottle age to shine. Loaded with notions of crème de cassis, blueberry, earth, chocolate, and graphite, it’s incredibly full-bodied and dense on the palate, with gorgeous purity of fruit. While it holds everything relatively tight and close to its vest now, with plenty of tannin and acidity, it’s a beautiful wine that needs another 4-5 years of bottle age and will keep for another 2+ decades.
Critic scores
Robert Parker
James Suckling
More reviews and scores
Bright medium ruby. Heady scents of blueberry, blackberry, licorice and graphite minerality are complemented by coffee and briney olive notes. Much less unctuous on the palate than the nose suggests; not austere but juicy, backward and firmly built. The wine's concentrated black fruit flavors are given sex appeal by graphite minerality and an element of sweet oak, with integrated acidity providing terrific definition and energy. This wonderfully suave, fine-grained wine possesses a serious tannic structure for a long and graceful evolution in bottle. I suspect it will be longer-lived than the 2012. Winemaker Marc Gagnon noted that 2013 was an ideal vintage that featured an early set and an early harvest, with no extremes. (ST)
The purity of fruit here is terrific with licorice, black currant and oyster shell. Blackberry too. Full body. The finish is overwhelming with such great intensity and grip. High-tensioned austerity. Energetic and intense. Tannins are austere. Drink in 2021.
The flagship wine, the 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon Estate, comes from a magnificent hillside vineyard overlooking Lake Hennessey (13 acres) and is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon. This wine has an incredible track record, with some legendary efforts such as the 1995, 1997, and most recent vintages since 2005, as well as the 2013 all beauties. The classic purity of blueberry and blackberry fruit as well as white flowers and subtle background oak is followed by a full-bodied, voluptuously textured, multi-layered wine that is stunningly lush, with sweet, sweet tannin and beautiful purity and length. This excellent wine can be drunk early on or cellared for another 25 or more years.
About the producer
Founded by Don Bryant in 1986, Bryant Estate is built around a 13-acre vineyard rising from 900 to 1,200 feet on Pritchard Hill. Now led by Bettina Bryant, its acclaimed Bryant Family Vineyard is regarded as one of Napa Valley’s benchmark Cabernet Sauvignons.