2006 Shafer Napa Valley Merlot

95 points Wine Enthusiast: "Easily Shafer’s greatest Merlot ever. Certainly its richest, with fabulously concentrated blackberry, cherry, licorice, chocolate and cinnamon spice flavors. All this is wrapped into extraordinarily sweet, refined tannins. Addictively drinkable, but not a long ager. Best now and through 2012."-WE 3/01/09. 92 points Connoisseurs' Guide to California Wine: "Heavily extracted aromas of black cherries, dark soils, hints of licorice and scads of rich oak announce this wine's serious intentions, and it continues in the mouth with deep, ripe, layered flavors whose slight tilt to ripeness is nothing more than we have seen in virtually all Shafer releases. The key, of course, is that Shafer wines have historically shown their ability to carry the style off to perfection, and, given this bottling's depth of fruit and underlying solidity, it joins the exalted ranks of its predecessors." (03/09) 90 points Stephen Tanzer's International Wine Cellar: "Very good deep ruby-red color. Medicinal black cherry, licorice and flowers on the slightly high-toned nose, along with a suggestion of cherry skin. Dense, sweet and fruity in the mouth if still a bit youthfully tight, with a slight medicinal quality to the flavors of dark berries, black cherry and licorice. Finishes smooth and long, with firm tannins. I'd give this a year before pulling the cork." (12/08) ETA: Sept 19th, 2009.