2008 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon

Good dark red with a ruby tinge; not the darkest of these more recent vintages. Lively nose combines cassis, licorice, bitter chocolate, mint, leather and vanillin oak; hinted at a slight candied fruit quality as it opened in the glass. Wonderfully sweet and surprisingly creamy in the mouth, conveying an easygoing, low-acid impression but excellent fruit intensity. Very attractive wine if not as complex as the best recent vintages at this address; some of the sweetness here may be from the oak. The dusty tannins are more obvious than those of the '07 but that may be because there's less buffering thickness of fruit in spite of the very low production. Still, this wine showed little of the herbal, even eucalyptus, character of a bottle I tried last year as part of my horizontal tasting of '08s. (13.9% alcohol; 34% new oak; from a very small crop due to frost, widespread shatter during flowering and heat during the harvest)

(13.9% alcohol): Dark red-ruby. Pungent herb and eucalyptus notes lift the aromas of black cherry, cassis, licorice and minerals; the nose conveys an impression of appley acidity. At once dense and juicy but quite restrained, even a bit cool and herbal: no easy sweetness here! Offers a suave grain and good definition but this is a leanish wine that's unlikely to ever expand fully. Finishes with firm, dusty, building tannins and good rising length. But clearly a wine from an uneven growing season.

The 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon Estate is a gorgeous, mid-weight wine laced with mint, cassis, sweet herbs and tobacco. It is an understated, gracious wine from start to finish. This is a relatively approachable vintage for the Estate. It shows tons of finesse and mid-palate generosity while maintaining a medium-bodied personality. Today it is quite young, though drinking well. Readers who prefer more tertiary notes will want to cellar the wine for at least a few years.