2016 Dalla Valle MDV
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Dalla Valle's 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon MDV - a 100% Cabernet from the Maya blocks - is simply magnificent. Another year in bottle has really helped the 2016 come together. Inky and explosive yet also wonderfully transparent for such a big wine, the 2016 is mind-blowingly beautiful. Tasting it brings back fond memories of the 1999, a one-off auction wine that later became the prototype for the present-day MDV. The 2016 is so vivid in the glass, and yet it possesses tremendous richness and simply mind-blowing intensity. What a wine!
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Antonio Galloni, Vinous
Antonio Galloni, Vinous
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The 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon MDV is a six barrel blend from a single block of Cabernet that has only been bottled in two prior vintages (2010 and 2013). Dark red and black fruit, graphite, lavender, sage and new leather give the MDV its distinctive potent, virile feel. A wine of extraordinary precision and personality, the MDV is clearly one of the wines of this great Napa Valley vintage, and I say that realizing it might not be the very best wine in this range! That is splitting hairs, as all of the 2016s at Dalla Valle are majestic.
About the producer

Dalla Valle Vineyards was founded in 1986 by Naoko and her late husband Gustav Dalla Valle, in Oakville. Initially they had wanted to create a luxury resort, but when they discovered the potential of the site, they changed tack and decided to make wine.