As big, bold and out-and out flashy as any wine tasted from St. Emilion, this very ripe and highly extracted wine smacks of dark cherries and scorched chocolate in a thoroughly atypical look at the Bordelaise model. It comes with a full dose of hard tannins, but it is shot through with enlivening acids as well, and it has the sense of a wine that will need a decade or more before showing its true colors. At 15% alcohol, it is not only atypical, it is also proof that California can do this style b...

Bright ruby-red. Superripe, perfumed nose dominated by griotte cherry, raspberry and cocoa. Lush, smooth and impressively concentrated, with enough acidity and minerality to leaven the wine's almost port-like ripeness . Very deep flavors of sweet cherry and dark berries carry through on the mounting, palate-saturating finish. A massive example of Pavie-Macquin whose thick coat of baby fat is currently making the wine hard to view. This one is going to require a minimum of a decade of patience.