2004 Spottswoode Sauvignon Blanc Napa Valley
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Tasting notes
This winery continues to make one of the finest Sauvignon Blancs in California, and the 2004, which has about 20% Semillon in the blend, boasts beautifully crisp, melony, honeysuckle, gun flint, and orange-like characteristics in the nose. Drink this lovely, medium-bodied Sauvignon over the next 2 years. Tel. (707) 963-0134; Fax (707) 963-2886
Critic scores
Average Score
Robert Parker
Stephen Tanzer, Vinous
More reviews and scores
(just bottled when I sampled it; made from sauvignon blanc from Spottswoode's own vineyard and Hyde Vineyard in Carneros, including some sauvignon musque, and 22% semillon from Tofanelli Vineyard) Good pale medium yellow. Pungent aromas of gooseberry, grass and minerals, with floral lift. Juicy and penetrating, but with a thickness that comes from the semillon. Serious, expressive, minerally sauvignon with attractive sweet fruit. Twenty percent of this wine was fermented in oak, the rest in stainless steel. Winemaker Rosemary Cakebread noted that the estate started picking their 2004 sauvignon blanc on August 5.
About the producer
Spottswoode is one of those rare Napa estates whose reputation rests less on volume or spectacle than on persistent exactitude. Set on the western edge of St Helena, where the Mayacamas rise and afternoon breezes temper the valley’s warmth, the vineyard occupies a favoured pocket of the appellation.