Rob lately introduced us a glowing evaluate of Larkmead‘s iconic Cabernet Sauvignon from the 2020 classic — and now we’re taking a step additional up the Napa operation’s lineup with a have a look at the 2018 bottling of “The Lark,” primarily its reserve to finish all reserves. The vineyard’s high tier wine is product of 100% Cabernet Sauvignon and is aged 18 months in 100% new French oak from Sylvain Signature cooperage. It’s naturally a small manufacturing wine with just a few hundred instances produced.
Darkish, dense, and loaded with notes of graphite, anise, and thick lashings of currants, the wine cuts a a lot completely different profile than Rob’s evaluate of the 2020 Cabernet evokes. At present it nonetheless drinks extremely tight and tannic — although rather more immense than the 14.1% abv would recommend — with layers of tart plums and black cherries bringing nuance to what’s in any other case a monstrous, blown-out expertise. One other 10 years in cellar wouldn’t be un-called for with this wine, its notes of charred oak, licorice root, and the darkest of chocolate desperately in want of time to mood. Unusually, a lot as Rob famous, it by some means nonetheless manages to work pretty effectively at the moment, with sufficient of a fruity grip to maintain all that different palate-searing enterprise in test. That mentioned… in 2034 that is going to be killer.
A- / $350 / larkmead.com
2018 Larkmead Cabernet Sauvignon “The Lark”
$350
