2014 Levy & McClellan Red

The 2014 Red Wine is one of the more open, available, young vintages of Levy & McClellan I can remember tasting. There is good depth to the dark cherry, chocolate, mocha and leather flavors. Perhaps more importantly, the tannins are quite soft for a young vintage of this wine.

The 2014 Proprietary Red is a blend of 74% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12% Cabernet Franc, 8% Merlot and the rest Petit Verdot from their mountainside vineyard not far from the Sonoma County line. The entire vintage is barrel-fermented in Darnajou and Taransaud barrels and aged for 26 months prior to bottling. This looks like a relatively powerful Cabernet Sauvignon-based wine, but there are only 300 cases. The wine is full-bodied, with notes of loamy soil, graphite, forest floor, blackberry and cassis with a hint of charcoal and licorice. This is a sensational effort from Levy & McClellan that should drink beautifully for 25 or more years.

The 2014 Red Wine is shaping up to be another striking, beautiful wine from Bob Levy and Martha McClellan. Polished and laid-back for this normally opulent wine, the 2014 is deep, inky and expressive, with plenty of black cherry, crème de cassis, chocolate, clove and licorice overtones. Because of the wine's mid-weight structure, I expect the 2014 will be ready to drink sooner than most vintages.