2021 Leonetti Cabernet Sauvignon Walla Walla Valley Reserve
Market price
Buying options
Tasting notes
The 2021 Reserve is impossible to ignore. Perfumed and dramatic, it blossoms in the glass with a cascade of exotic spices, lavender pastille and black cherries. This is pure elegance, silken yet graceful and lifted in feel, with crisp wild berry fruits and mineral tones that add a crunchy sensation toward the close. It finishes long and classically structured, leaving a flourish of violet inner florals as hints of blackberry fade slowly.
Critic scores
Jeb Dunnuck
Eric Guido, Vinous
More reviews and scores
Similarly vivid purple-hued, the 2021 Reserve is based on 75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 14% Malbec, 7% Petit Verdot, and the rest Merlot, which spent 22 months in new and once-filled French oak barrels. It has an incredibly impressive, rich, full-bodied profile, and it's slightly broader and more opulent compared to the Cabernet Sauvignon, offering a kaleidoscope-like array of red, blue, and black fruits, truffly earth, graphite, tobacco, and spring flower aromas and flavors. With a great mid-palate, a deep, layered, opulent mouthfeel, and velvety tannins, this borderline perfect wine needs just 2-4 years in the cellar and, I suspect, will have 2-3 decades of overall longevity.
The expressive and bold 2021 Walla Walla Reserve is layered with abundant dusty dark red and black fruit essences, complemented by subtle notes of brown baking spices, juicy tobacco and cedar. Mostly Cabernet Sauvignon with 14% Malbec, 7% Petit Verdot and 4% Merlot, this wine offers an immensely powerful and seductive nose of dusty red flowers and succulent spices. Although full-bodied and generously layered, this beauty is still tight and requires at least two more years in the bottle to reach its full potential, promising to age gracefully for over two decades. Your patience will be rewarded. Decanting is recommended. The wine rested for 22 months in a mix of new and once-filled French oak. Just under 12,000 bottles were made.