2005 La Muse

The myth perpetrated by Old World wine proponents is that California wines don’t age. Those critics need to taste Verité, because these wines are aging far slower than I imagined. The 2005 La Muse, a blend of 88% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Franc and the rest Malbec, tips the scales at 14.5% alcohol and spent 18 months in 100% new French oak. Incredibly youthful, this wine has an opaque purple color and a beautiful nose of espresso roast, white chocolate, blackberry and cassis, with mocha and a touch of oak. The wine is full-bodied, with magnificent structure, texture and density. I could drink it now. That said, most consumers should give this wine another 3-4 years, and drink it over the following 30+ years. ||This has turned out to be a great, great vintage for Bordeaux winemaker Pierre Seillan and these three cuvées of the Jackson Family’s luxury brand of Verité. All of these wines are culled from some of the best high-elevation parcels that the Jackson family owned, with every vineyard being used between 500 and 2,500-foot elevations. Most of it emanates from their sites on Alexander Mountain Estate, Chalk Hill, Bennett Valley and Knight’s Valley. Case production varies from a low of 880 cases for La Muse to nearly 1,600 cases for La Joie. Of course, they are three totally separate wines, with La Muse the Merlot-dominated cuvée and Pierre Seillan’s California interpretation of a Pomerol; the La Joie his Sonoma version of a Medoc; and Le Désir a Cabernet Franc-dominated wine that is his version of a St.-Emilion. These wines performed unbelievably well. And, talking to Pierre Seillan, he rejects the notion that single sites produce the most complex wines. He believes that multiple sites build far more nuance and complexity, and add to the architectural complexity of a wine. All of these wines are young, still somewhat adolescent in their evolution, with probably 30 or more years of aging potential.|Verite, Tel. (707) 433-9000 eRobertParker.com.June, 2015