Diamond Creek Gravelly Meadow
2019
Diamond Creek is a true California legend: rare (only 1,500 total cases of three 'regular' bottlings, with tiny additional quantities from the miniscule Lake vineyard in favorable vintages), expensive, and talked or written about much more often than actually tasted. Furthermore, even the most rabid devotees of Napa cab have never seen the place - and they never will, no matter how many times they traverse Highway 29 or the Silverado Trail. In fact "Napa Valley" almost seems a silly appellation...
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Our second coolest micro-climate is our five-acre Gravelly Meadow vineyard. Originally a pre-historic river bed, this stony, gravelly soil drains rapidly and the vines struggle for moisture. Gravelly Meadow is our lowest yielding vineyard. The wine is earthy, cedary, jammy with ripe blackberry and a spicy expansive finish
Aromatic with blackcurrant, ink, black licorice, iodine and oyster shell. Full-bodied with fine, chewy tannins and blue-fruit, currant-bush and rose-petal flavors. Very transparent. It goes on for minutes. Give this some time to soften, but already a genie in the bottle. Drink after 2027.
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On the palate, the impressive fruit concentration and depth is matched by stony, grippy mineral tannins, lashings of more salty black liquorice, blueberry spice and a rich vein of black currant and caramel cream intensity. A wine with lovely focused power, a sympathetic harmony, textural symmetry and plenty of generosity. Just Awesome.
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Quite brambly in feel, with zesty acidity and a pronounced savory streak adding a perkiness to the mix of blackberry, black cherry and black currant fruit. Floral, anise and warm earth notes fill in on the finish. Feels a bit raw and untamed now, in the old-school style. Cellaring is required so this can modulate itself. Best from 2024 through 2038.
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