Reserve Claret

2013
Reserve Claret

Ripe and complex notes of red and black currants, strawberry preserves, plum skin and black tea. Swirling adds richness and vibrancy with dried herbs and potpourri. The palate is rich and beautifully textured with great freshness and firm but age-worthy tannins. This will be a stunner for several decades.

Vintages

Varietal(s)

68% Cabernet Sauvignon, 28% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc

Vinification

Aged for 78% new French oak and 12% used for 21 months

Alcohol

14.9%

Cases Produced

558

Vintage Notes

The Reserve Claret is blended form a small subset of our most select barrels (Cabernet, Merlot and Cab Franc only). It undergoes a slightly cooler, slightly longer fermentation to achieve more compression, more density, more complexity. It also spends a little more time in barrel—19-21 months—to achieve the profile we’re looking for.

Expert Reviews & Scores

Jeb Dunnuck, The wine Advocate

95 / 100

Another sensational wine is the 2013 Reserve, which is largely Cabernet Sauvignon blended with 28% Merlot and 4% Cabernet Franc, aged 21 months in new French oak. It reveals fabulous purity of fruit and full-bodied richness, as well as textbook Bordeaux-like notes of black currants, cassis, lead pencil shaving and leafy herbs. It shows more and more tannin with time in the glass, but it never loses its overall sense of elegance and purity. Well-stored bottles should be at their best from 2020-2038.

Stephen Tanzer, Vinous

91 / 100

Bright ruby-red. Musky dark chocolate complements aromas of cassis and licorice. Like the Cabernet Sauvignon, this is densely packed but a bit youthfully compressed in the early going (Morell mentioned the rather cool maximum fermentation temperature of 80 degrees F.) But this tight, backward blend boasts terrific precision that presages a graceful evolution in bottle. And even today there's nothing hard about it.

Trade Materials