2023 Outpost 'True Vineyard' Cabernet Sauvignon, Howell Mountain, USA (750ml)

WINEMAKER'S NOTES: 

2023 proved to be a stellar vintage for the entire Napa Valley, Howell Mountain in particular. Abundant winter rainfall replenished water reserves, and a cool spring extended budbreak while promoting vigorous vine growth. Although veraison progressed slowly across the valley, the higher elevations of Outpost and True Vineyard, above the fog line, ensured steady and uniform ripening. With no major weather extremes, harvest timing could be carefully controlled, resulting in generally average to above-average yields and outstanding fruit quality. The vintage is marked by dense color, excellent concentration, bright acidity, and finely polished tannins, producing wines that clearly reflect both their vineyards and this remarkable year.

TASTING NOTES:

Offering impressive complexity on the nose, the 2023 Cabernet Sauvignon True Vineyard seamlessly marries floral, piney notes with blueberries and cherries, underscored by dark chocolate and earth. Full-bodied, creamy and lush, this starts off almost like one of winemaker Thomas Rivers Brown's sexy valley-floor offerings, but then the texture and tannins slowly build in intensity, showing tremendous longevity and a layered weave on the lingering finish. Wow! 

- Robert Parker's Wine Advocate, 98-100 pts. 

Another heavenly wine that shows the classic, more reserved style of some of the 2023s, the 2023 Cabernet Sauvignon True Vineyard offers pure cassis, graphite, crushed stone, and liquid violet notes. Aged 20 months in new French oak, it's full-bodied, deep, rich, massive, and concentrated, with serious mid-palate depth and building tannins. While it shows this reserved style, it's absolutely loaded with potential, and this textured beauty has a great, great finish that won't quit. Hide bottles for 5-6 years and enjoy over the following two to three decades. 98+

- Jeb Dunnuck, 98+ pts. 

Lifted and perfumed aromas of mulberries, black olives, crushed stones, black currants and coffee beans. The palate is full-bodied with mouthwatering tannins and a rounded texture, giving a balanced, minerally finish that lingers. Refined and made with precision and focus. Drink or hold.

- James Suckling, 98 pts. 

The 2023 Cabernet Sauvignon True Vineyard is another fabulous wine from Outpost. Bright acids and beams of tannin drive through a core of blue/purplish fruit, lavender, cloves, new oak and menthol. Sculpted contours are a fabulous complement to the inky dark fruit. The True is superb in 2023, but readers will have to be patient, as it is still a very young wine. Classic Howell Mountain. 

- Vinous, 96 pts. 

Densely packed with delicious flavors of blackberry, mulberry and boysenberry reduction that will need time to unwind and meld with a long tarry streak, plus singed mesquite and apple wood. Inlaid ink notes hold sway through the back end. There’s ample succulent energy in reserve, so just be patient. 

- Wine Spectator, 96 pts.