2002 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon
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Tasting notes
The 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon Estate is a richer, bigger version of the 2001 and has loads of crème de cassis, pipe tobacco, chocolate, and spice-laced aromas and flavors. Possessing full-bodied richness, a deep, unctuous mid-palate, and ripe tannins, it too is fully mature and drinking at point, yet has another decade of life or more if stored correctly. I have a slight preference for the more elegant 2001, but this is simply another magical Napa Valley Cabernet that will stand up to the best in the world.
Critic scores
Robert Parker
Jancis Robinson MW
More reviews and scores
In 2002 very small yields produced only about 3,000 cases at 14.7% natural alcohol and a blend of 94% Cabernet Sauvignon and 6% Cabernet Franc. This wine is going from strength to strength since I first tasted it prior to bottling. Now a perfect wine, the incredible perfume of blueberries, black raspberries and cassis, along with white flowers and camphor is extraordinarily fragrant and intense. That is easily matched by the magnificent full-bodied richness and compellingly layered mouthfeel of this wine that is rich, full-bodied and a still youthful vintage that remains capable of another 25-30 years of cellaring. This is a dramatic vintage for Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, and it is always fascinating to taste a top winery’s 2001 and 2002 next to each other because they are both such great years. However, the 2002s tend to be the more flamboyant wines, and the 2001s the more structured and broodingly backward.
Deep, saturated red-ruby. Ripe, almost liqueur-like black raspberry and truffle on the nose; and yet there's something very youthful about this. Generous, plush and sweet but with a tangy raspberry flavor keeping the wine in check. Rich, deep and wonderfully youthful. A touch of menthol emerges with air. A beautiful result from a hot year, despite having the highest alcohol (14.7%) of any vintage of Spottswoode to date.
About the producer
Spottswoode is one of those rare Napa estates whose reputation rests less on volume or spectacle than on persistent exactitude. Set on the western edge of St Helena, where the Mayacamas rise and afternoon breezes temper the valley’s warmth, the vineyard occupies a favoured pocket of the appellation.