96+ Points - The Wine Advocate. The profoundly successful 2021 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon vintage - a year that seems destined to eclipse even the extraordinary 2013, 2018, and 2019 vintages allowed Katie Vogt and her team to create a masterpiece. The Pahlmeyer Proprietary Red 2021, a blend of 88% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Merlot, 1.5% Petit Verdot, and 1.5% Malbec, is the product of high elevation sites at Upper Range, Waters Ranch, and Vagone. The grapes were hand-harvested at night to preserve the grapes' freshness and balance. On arrival at the winery, they were hand sorted and destemmed with only perfect examples being used for the Proprietary Red. Following a long and gentle fermentation, the individual lots were aged in new Taransaud barriques for 20 months. Once blended, racked and bottled, the Pahlmeyer Proprietary Red 2021 was aged in Pahlmeyers cellars until June 2023 to allow its dazzling array of component parts to harmonise before release.

Vivino Rating: 4.5 (Nov 2024)

Wine Press Ratings

96+ Points - The Wine Advocate (2021 Vintage)

"The 2021 Proprietary Red blends estate fruit from Stagecoach (37%) and the Waters Ranch (24%) with purchased elements from Upper Range (34%) and Vangone (5%). The varietal composition is 87% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Merlot, 2% Malbec, 2% Petit Verdot and 1% Cabernet Franc. Aging 18 months in 94% new French oak, it will be bottled unfined and unfiltered. Right now, it offers compelling fruit-driven aromas of ripe cherries, cassis, and blueberriesthe oak is well concealed. Full-bodied and rich, this is dense and velvety on the palate, with a long, mouthwatering finish, despite an ample amount of dusty tannins."

96 Points - Decanter (2021 Vintage)

"Flashy and fragrant aromatics of ripe blackberry fruit, graphite, tobacco, purple florals, herbs, and slivers of dark chocolate. Fabulously rich, dense dark black and blue fruit notes, tobacco leaf, and black olive atop a sea of ultra-fine velvety tannins. Its a seamless red with no rough edges. Winemaker Katie Vogt blends the Cabernet and Merlot but waits to blend in the Malbec later, while 2% Petit Verdot and 1% Cabernet Franc round out the cuvée. It's aged in heavy toast Taransaud and Darnajou barrels for 18 months. Hillside sources include Waters, Upper Range, Stagecoach, and Vangone."

Taste

The Wine Advocates Joe Czerwinski awarded the Pahlmeyer Proprietary Red 2021 96+ highlighting how it offers compelling fruit-driven aromas of ripe cherries, cassis, and blueberries. As you would expect from Pahlmeyers flagship wine in an exceptional vintage, the Pahlmeyer Proprietary Red 2021 is quite a wine. Very deeply coloured with the barest hint of crimson at the rim of the blue-black body, its bouquet is a harmonious blend of cassis, loganberry, peppers, roasted plums, leather and smoky oak. The palate is broad, impressive, and fulsome. Tightly packed flavours of plums, blackberries, blackcurrants, eucalyptus, chocolate, high-roast coffee, and liquorice create wonderful tension and complexity. The finish is firm, but juicy, with spices adding lift while savoury minerals keep it grounded. A fascinating wine with a wonderful future, it has all the elegance of a Cru Classe Bordeaux but with the power and immediacy of a Napa Cabernet.

Blend: 88% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Merlot, 1.5% Petit Verdot, 1.5% Malbec

About the Producer

Pahlmeyer has gone from being one mans dream to being one of the finest producers of Cabernet Sauvignon in Napa Valley. Founder Jayson Pahlmeyer started with a shoebox of smuggled Bordeaux vine cuttings and a mission to create a California Mouton - a rich, powerful Napa Valley Bordeaux blend, a wine that would drop wine lovers to their knees. Taste the Pahlmeyer Jayson 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon and youd have to say mission accomplished. The establishment of his own vineyard in the late 1990s in Atlas Peak in eastern Napa Valley from where the fruit for the Jayson comes, was a game-changer. Desolate, poor and free draining its proved a paradisal location for vines and has allowed Pahlmeyer to take its place amongst the worlds greatest Cabernet Sauvignons.