1985 Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon Cask 23 Wine Spectator Collection Posters of the Belle Epoque

This wine is unquestionably one of the super-stars of the 1985 vintage. Previously, I have consistently rated it from the mid to upper nineties in all my tastings. In this tasting, the wine was atypically backward and not nearly as flattering and precocious as it has been. It exhibited some of the intense, exotic perfume (hickory smoke, blackcurrants, vanilla, and Asian spices) and sweet, opulent, fleshy palate it has always possessed, but the tannin was more noticeable and the wine was more structured, as well as extremely youthful and unevolved. This rich, full-bodied Cask 23 appears to have developed a greater sense of delineation. It may be even longer-lived than I initially expected. I suspect that if this particular bottle had not been stored in such a cold cellar (my own), the wine may have been more forward and advanced. This is a great, young, extremely complex and compelling California Cabernet Sauvignon-based wine that should age effortlessly for 15-20 years.