2021 Rivers-Marie Cabernet Sauvignon M-Bar Ranch
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Adjacent to Vine Hill Ranch and Harlan Estate, M-Bar Ranch is a small vineyard with a 50-year history of selling grapes to the Mondavi family. The 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon M-Bar Ranch boasts amazing purity of dark fruit—think black cherries and cassis—with just hint of vanillin oak. Full-bodied, this is ripe, sexy stuff, supple and easy to drink but with enough concentration and tannic spine to last a good 20 years.
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Antonio Galloni, Vinous
Antonio Galloni, Vinous
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The 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon M-Bar Ranch was striking from barrel, as it is again today in finished form. Readers will find a Cabernet Sauvignon of dynamic energy—a wine that starts fast and just goes faster. Dark red fruit, gravel, cedar, tobacco, menthol and incense are some of the many notes that build as the 2021 gains volume into its beautifully persistent finish. This is a remarkable wine from young vine fruit in one of Napa Valley's most elite sites.
A new offering in this range, the 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon M-Bar Ranch emerges from the youngest part of this vineyard on the Oakville's southern border. Soaring aromatics and dark fruit are some of the signatures of this site, along a core component of the Mondavi Reserve. There is every reason to think this will be an epic wine once the vines are a bit older. The 2021 is certainly a magnificent debut. The aromatics are captivating, all this needs is the depth that comes with vine age.