Style: New World
Aroma: Vanilla blueberry pastry, star anise, eucalyptus, and cedar
Flavor: Blackberry jam, hibiscus black tea, chocolate mousse, and allspice
Sweetness: Dry
Enjoy: Now-3 years with food and on its own
Pairing: Pot Roast, Steak & Potatoes, Beef Stew
Bottom Line: A bold and complex Cabernet that shows nuance and muscle.
Critical Acclaim
Wilfred Wong of Wine.com – 93
The just-released 2019 Caymus Napa Valley Cabernet could be the 49th vintage of this iconic brand I have tasted (I’ll have to check my notes, I may have missed one or two)—my favorites have been the 1972 and 1973 vintages. Over the last two decades, the wines have amused me as they have taken intriguing turns in the road. The 2019 vintage, the winery’s best in recent times, is exciting and profound. TASTING NOTES: This wine shows up with the lasting power of black fruit and licorice. Its layers of persistent and formidable fruit could turn a semi-vegetarian into a carnivore.
Wine Spectator – 92
A rich, showy style, with a very creamy texture to its mix of warmed vanilla, plum and boysenberry puree, and melted black licorice flavors. A mocha notes swirls around the fruit on the finish. Drink now through 2028.
Connoisseurs’ Guide – 90
77% Cabernet Sauvignon; 23% red Bordeaux varieties. Very polished, fully ripe and very well-fruited with a generous, but an always-complementary allocation of sweet oak fitting in seamlessly with its dominant themes of juicy black cherries and cassis, the 2019 Caymus Cabernet is surprisingly open and expressive for one of its age while still showing the fine tannic structure of a wine that has nowhere but good places to go. Slightly grippy, but never tough, it is all but certain to lure more than a few into too-early drinking, and, though we must admit that it does offer a great deal to like now and will elevate the coming Christmas dinner of prime rib, it is only with patience – three or four years at the least and, better yet, five or six – that it will fully come into its own.
Tasting.com – 90
Ruby black color. Aromas of vanilla blueberry pastry, star anise, eucalyptus, and cedar with a tannic, racy, dry full body and a peppery, intricate, very long blackberry jam, hibiscus black tea, chocolate mousse, and allspice finish with firm, chewy, well-integrated tannins and heavy oak flavor. A bold and complex Cabernet that shows nuance and muscle.
