Score: |
96 JG. "I have friends who cut their teeth on the cabernets from this era, and surprisingly, they rank both 1973 and 1975 vintages slightly ahead of the 1974s, as they find the ‘74s a bit too ripe and massive to have produced classic California cabernet. The 1975 Mayacamas cabernet must be amongst the two or three finest wines of this superb vintage, as it soars from the glass in a brilliantly complex mélange of black cherries, tar, black truffles, cigar smoke, lovely soil tones, espresso and a touch of mint and petroleum jelly in the upper register. On the palate the wine is full-bodied, deep and vibrant, with a great core of sappy black cherry fruit and black truffle tones, tangy acids, still a bit of ripe tannin and outstanding length and grip on the beautifully focused and complex finish. This is one of the great wines to ever have been made in California’s history, and I cannot believe that I opened a magnum of this last year, given the fact that this wine probably still has thirty or forty years more life ahead of it." John Gilman, View From the Cellar, Mar/Apr 2009, Issue #20 |