2009 Mount Eden Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Estate

(88% cabernet sauvignon, 6% merlot, 4% cabernet franc and 2% petit verdot): Deep ruby. Powerful, smoke-accented cherry and blackcurrant aromas are energized by zesty minerals, picking up pipe tobacco, cedar and dried rose nuances with air. Fleshy and broad but focused too, offering intense dark berry flavors and a suggestion of bitter chocolate. A sweet vanilla quality rounds out the impressively persistent finish, which shows superb clarity and solid but well-knit tannins.

Dark red fruit, menthol, spices, licorice and plums meld together in the 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon. Rich, layered and textured, the Cabernet Sauvignon has plenty of vintage 2009 juiciness, but firm, well-integrated tannins provide a gorgeous backbone of structure. The style is bold, juicy and direct, much of that shaped by a period of warmth at the end of the growing season. This is an unusually flashy wine from Mount Eden, but it works. Over the last few years in particular, the Cabernet Sauvignon has been the hidden gem in the Mount Eden lineup.