2010 BOND Melbury

This starts off slowly and moves quickly to the back palate. Blackberry and raspberry character with hints of forest mushroom. Full body with chewy tannins at the finish. Extremely polished.

From a higher site in the Pritchard Hill area, the 2010 Melbury appears to be prodigious, but is currently extremely backward. My notes indicate it should be forgotten for 7-10 years. With coaxing, this structured 2010 offers up aromas of blueberry liqueur, black currants, charcoal and spring flowers. It possesses gorgeous purity and remarkable incremental richness, but it is quite brooding and backward. Everything it needs for a great future is present, but patience will definitely be required. To quickly summarize this project that has been remarkably successful since the debut vintage, Bond is the project of the visionary Bill Harlan, the proprietor of Harlan Estate. Along with winemaker Bob Levy and consulting enologist Michel Rolland, he continues to sign 20-year leases on highly regarded vineyards planted with 100% Cabernet Sauvignon from which he offers consumers world-class Cabernet Sauvignons that showcase different Napa microclimates/terroirs. In short, there are five separate vineyard sites in the Bond portfolio. The Melbury comes from a seven-acre parcel (sedimentary and clay soils) on steep slopes in the Pritchard Hill area near Lake Hennessey, east of Rutherford. The northern most parcel, the Pluribus comes from a high elevation (1,000 feet) site on Spring Mountain. It, too, is a seven-acre parcel planted in the white volcanic bedrock called tufa. The most southerly situated vineyard is Vecina (11 acres planted at 200- to 330 foot elevation), which is a neighbor of Harlan Estate in the Oakville Corridor, on the western hillsides of Napa. St. Eden, a valley floor vineyard, is composed of 11 acres on gentle foothills just north of the Oakville Crossroads. The Quella Vineyard is a nine-acre site in the eastern foothills of St. Helena with an interesting terroir of alluvial pebbles and small rocks of what is believed to be an old riverbed. White tufa can be found as well. Part of the objective is to vinify these wines in identical manners so that as they age their microclimate/terroir characters become more pronounced. The barrels that are deemed not worthy enough to go into the individual single-vineyard wines are blended into the Matriarch cuvée.

Good deep red-ruby. Subdued but very pure aromas of raspberry, currant and minerals. The suave middle palate boasts a noble texture and lovely subtle perfume that I did not find in the 2009 shortly after the bottling. Most impressive today on the mounting, expanding finish, which shows compelling sweetness and serious broad tannins. I'd lock this one away for at least another five or six years.