2018 Beaulieu Vineyard Tapestry Reserve
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Tasting notes
2018 was a 'near-perfect vintage'. Winemaker Trevor Durling said, 'Mother Nature threw nothing at me to force me to harvest earlier. We even reached phenolic ripeness before the sugars were high enough to pick.' 78% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Merlot, 8% Petit Verdot, 5% Malbec, 1% Cabernet Franc. This is 95% their own fruit, we're told. Fruit sourced from Rutherford, Calistoga, Oakville, Coombsville, Carneros and Howell Mountain. Each variety is vinified separately. Optical sorting, cold soaking, gentle pumpovers and fermented in stainless steel. Malo in French oak barrels, 60% new, where the wine spends 22 months. TA 6.4 g/l, pH 3.78. Sleek with a fragrant note of fresh laurel leaf whispering cool somethings above the audaciously ripe, red fruit. It's voluptuous, but not without intricacy – mint, blueberry and jasmine entwine a long, soapstone-smooth graphite spine, and the acidity has lustrous intensity, crimson ripeness. It almost feels as if it's dripping down your chin. What it lacks in subtlety, it makes up in sheer sumptuousness. (TC)
Critic scores
Average Score
Tamlyn Currin, jancisrobinson.com
James Suckling
More reviews and scores
The 2018 Red Blend Tapestry is a perennial good value and has up-front darker currant and plum fruits as well as notes of tobacco, chocolate, and spicy oak. Medium-bodied, firm, and focused on the palate, it shows the style of the vintage nicely and should keep for upwards of a decade.
The 2018 Reserve Tapestry Proprietary Red Wine is blended of 78% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Merlot, 8% Petit Verdot, 5% Malbec and 1% Cabernet Franc. Deep garnet-purple in color, it bursts with open-knit notes of black cherry preserves, warm cassis and redcurrants, plus hints of forest floor, clove oil and Ceylon tea, with a waft of wild sage. The full-bodied palate has a soft texture of ripe, fine-grained tannins and lovely freshness, finishing savory.
This is layered, with chewy tannins and attractive blackcurrant and blackberry character. Chocolate and walnut highlights. Full and flavorful, but not heavy in any sense of the word. Cabernet sauvignon, merlot, petit verdot and cabernet franc. Better in a year or two.
About the producer
Beaulieu Vineyard remains one of the most historically important wineries in Napa Valley. It is it one of the longest continuous running wineries in the region, as one of the few that kept operating throughout Prohibition.