2019 Booker My Favorite Neighbor
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Tasting notes
Saturated violet. A powerfully scented nose evokes ripe black and blue fruits, licorice, dark chocolate and vanilla, and a suggestion of pipe tobacco emerges with air. Broad and weighty in style, offering palate-coating cassis, kirsch, vanilla and fruitcake flavors underscored and energized by a smoky mineral note. Plays richness off energy with a sure hand and finishes wonderfully long and youthfully chewy, with mounting tannins and repeating smokiness.
Critic scores
Robert Parker
Jeb Dunnuck
More reviews and scores
A new vineyard designate for My Favorite Neighbor, the 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Lopai has slowly opening, elegant aromas of cassis and blueberry with accents of pencil shavings, milk chocolate, lilac and clay. The full-bodied palate is bright and silky, with powerful fruit intensity and a long finish replete with floral perfume. It continues to gain definition and nuance as it airs in the glass, suggesting it will continue to develop complexity in bottle over the next 15+ years.
The 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon is more elegant and focused, with medium to full-bodied aromas and flavors of cassis, redcurrants, green tobacco, and cedary spice. I love its texture, it has ripe, polished tannins, plenty of sweet fruit, and a great, great finish, all while staying in a relatively compact, and again, elegant package. As I’ve written in the past, it would cost three to four times the price from Napa. It’s worth noting the change in appellation from Paso Robles to San Luis Obispo County, which probably allows for a wider range of fruit. Eric Jensen’s My Favorite Neighbor lineup continues to grow and now includes numerous single vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon releases. While the Harvey and Harriet and straight Cabernet Sauvignon are larger production releases, the single vineyards are tiny production cuvées. As I’ve written numerous times in the past, all of these would run two to three times the cost if they were from Napa Valley.