2006 Cabernet Sauvignon St Helena
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Tasting notes
(14.8% alcohol): Bright, dark ruby-red. Fresh but youthfully imploded on the nose, hinting at urgent blackberry accented by eucalyptus. At once glossy and virile on the palate, showing a lovely core of sweetness and a tactile mouthfeel to its primary dark fruit, menthol and spicy oak flavors. Finishes savory, dry and long, with big tongue-coating tannins that still require cellaring. This should be long-lived.
Critic scores
Average Score
Robert Parker
Stephen Tanzer, Vinous
More reviews and scores
One of the top wines of the vintage, the 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Estate exhibits an opaque ruby/purple color as well as a big, sweet, fragrant nose of acacia flowers, charcoal, black currant liqueur, licorice, and forest floor. Atypically opulent with sweet velvety tannins (especially for a 2006), it reveals impressive purity and texture as well as a full-bodied, rich finish. This knock-out wine can be drunk now or cellared for 20+ years. Ric Forman has hit all cylinders with both these Cabernet Sauvignons. Tel. (707) 963-3900; Fax (707) 963-5384
Good ruby-red. Reticent nose hints at violet and bitter cherry. Dense, backward and a bit closed in on itself today, with a restrained sweetness to the dark berry, dark chocolate and menthol flavors. Less expressive and floral today than the young 2007, with the finish showing a broad dusting of tannins. Forman told me that with this 2006 he's doing more frequent, and computer-controlled, pumpovers, and making more use of four-ton stainless steel fermenters. The result, he believes, is wines with more but mellower tannins-wines with a broader mouth feel. This vintage included fruit from Forman's new Angwin source, which he says adds an exotic cabernet element.
(includes 12% cabernet franc, 8% petit verdot and 5% merlot) Bright red-ruby. Aromas of crushed cassis, tar, licorice and minerals. Sweet, lush and broad, but with harmonious acidity and underlying minerality giving shape to the blackberry and tar flavors. This boasts lovely sweetness without any heaviness. Finishes with big, rich, palate-dusting tannins, very good breadth and a note of chocolatey oak. This will merit a score at the high end of my projected range if it carries its freshness and lift into the bottle. As with the chardonnay, Forman was able to leave the red grapes on the vines for a long time in '06. "The sugars hardly budged but the flavors developed and the tannins got softer," he told me, adding that this vintage has a lower pH-3.78-than either the '07 or the '04 here.