Review Date: 2-5-2013

Notes of black plums and violets. Has deep fruit and hints of spice. **1/2. At UGC: Wow! This wine has put on considerable weight. With wild blackberry fruit, it's fresh and lively and has a balanced palate of dark berry fruit and spice, with a cool, lean finish that has hints of menthol. Best Grand Mayne I can ever remember tasting.

Review Date: 2-5-2013

Crème de cassis, spice, plum and kirsch. Good extraction and layers of complexity. Lots going on here. ***1/2. At UGC: Loads of black fruit, deep and rich, with a palate that unfolds with layers of dark fruit, coffee, exotic herbs and toasty mocha notes. This is as smooth as silk with good structure. Wow! Yum.

Review Date: 2-5-2013

Reminds me of the famed 2000 Léoville-Barton. Dark, dusty and chalky, with dark cherry, black walnut and kirsh notes.

Review Date: 2-5-2013

The Cabernet really shines through.

Review Date: 2-5-2013

This wine is packed with deep, rich red fruit, layers of complexity, great minerality and a long, supple finish. Bravo.

Review Date: 2-5-2013

A must buy! Bright fruit, with precision and elegance found in few wines. Laser beam fruit with supple tannins. Wow! This may be a legend in the making. And it may even be affordable.

Review Date: 2-4-2013

A more feminine wine than the Léoville-Barton, with super bright, crunchy cherry fruit. Very fresh and long.

Review Date: 2-4-2013

Super elegant nose, very long on the palate with pretty fruit. Impressive.

Review Date: 2-4-2013

Super elegant nose, very long on the palate with pretty fruit. Impressive.

Review Date: 2-4-2013

Michel Rolland's fingerprints are all over this wine. It has a seamless entry onto the palate, which shows good purity of fruit and suppleness. I get crunchy red fruit with pretty minerality. A very impressive value.

Review Date: 1-15-2013

-1997. That’s the first thought I had when tasting the 2010 Joseph Phelps Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley, this was a return to one of the best values I had ever experienced in my life in California Cabernet Sauvignon. The 1997 Joseph Phelps Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley was so good they made less of it because the lion share went into the flagship wine “Insignia”. The 2010 Joseph Phelps Cabernet Sauvignon is that good, it feels like a $100+ California Cabernet Sauvignon but sells for about half that price. The wine has impeccable balance, depth of fruit nicely accented by hints of herbs and spice along with a dense, complex core of fruit along with supple tannins and good acidity. This wine is approachable and drinkable now with a few hours of aeration and will handsomely reward the connoisseur who has the patience to put this away in the cellar for 5-15 years. If you’ve been lamenting the fact that most of the wines you used to love are now selling for well over $100 then try buying the 2010 Joseph Phelps Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley and you can pretend it is 1997 all over again.

Review Date: 11-20-2012

This wine is great! Spicy, crunchy red fruit, tons of minerality. Elegant and juicy.

Review Date: 10-29-2012

Big, bold, with great tannins. This wine sings with fruit and terroir.

Review Date: 10-26-2012

A reference point for Margaux. This wine is pretty, elegant and Burgundian in style. So fresh, bright and lean.

Review Date: 10-26-2012

A reference point for Margaux. This wine is pretty, elegant and Burgundian in style. So fresh, bright and lean.