2006 Levy & Mc Clellan Red
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Tasting notes
The 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon displays beautifully sweet blue and black fruits intermixed with espresso roast, smoked meats, chocolate, and scorched earth. Dense purple in color, deep, rich, broad, with plenty of tannin and concentration as well as noticeable oak, this wine is a massive Cabernet meant for long-term cellaring. I wouldn’t touch a bottle for 6 to 8 years, then watch it unfold over the following 25-30. (Not yet released) You couldn’t ask for two more talented winemakers than the wife and husband team of Martha McClellan and Bob Levy. Their small, 400-case project from very tightly spaced vineyards (about 2,900 vines per acre) on Diamond Mountain continues to produce prodigious wines. Tel. (707) 963-1281; Fax (707) 963-1282
Critic scores
Robert Parker
Robert Parker
More reviews and scores
(includes bits of cabernet franc and petit verdot) Deep red-ruby. Complex, inviting aromas of cassis, graphite, menthol and sexy new oak. Very ripe but bright and classic, with terrific lift to the cassis, mineral and dark chocolate flavors. This boasts remarkably deep fruit for seven-year-old vines and finishes with very sweet, suave tannins and superb length. Husband-and-wife team Bob Levy and Martha McClellan, who are also responsible for making Harlan, Bond, Blankiet and Sloan, consider their 2005 to be a bit more layered and complex, but this one is also a star of its vintage.
(cabernet sauvignon with bits of cabernet franc and merlot) Good deep ruby. Black and blue fruits, licorice, violet and camphor on the nose. Superripe, supple and sweet on the front end, with lovely inner-palate lift to the flavors of dark berries, licorice and bitter chocolate. Then impressively bright and long on the back end, with substantial, building, fine-grained tannins and a youthfully medicinal character. This will be slow to evolve, but it already displays uncommon persistence for a wine from seven-year-old vines.