The nearly perfect 2002 Proprietary Red Wine is a blend of 75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 22% Merlot and the rest dollops of Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Malbec. This exotic, full-throttle, nearly over-the-top red wine’s intensity, richness and smoky coffee notes intermixed with notions of chocolate, graphite, and jammy blackberry and black currant fruit ooze from the glass. This rich, concentrated beauty tastes more like a top-notch, young Right Bank Bordeaux from a vintage such as 2009 than a wine dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon. With stunning purity and awesome potential, it can be drunk now or cellared for another two decades. Pahlmeyer has long been one of my favorite wineries for both their red wines and Chardonnays. Both the 2002 red cuvees, made by Erin Green for proprietor Jayson Pahlmeyer, are performing fabulously. These wines typically have tremendously long lives, as evidenced by some older vintages in my cellar that are continuing to age beautifully. One can make a strong argument that Pahlmeyer produces the finest Merlot in California. Tel. (707) 255-2321; Fax (707) 255-6786

The 2002 Proprietary Red (75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 22% Merlot, and 3% Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, and Malbec) reveals an inky/purple color as well as a sexy, hedonistic smorgasbord of smoked herbs, wood embers, melted chocolate, blackberries, cassis, camphor, and toast. This heady, full-bodied, voluptuously textured 2002 is a pedal-to-the-metal, classic Napa Valley red filled with richness, intensity, and purity. It is impossible to ignore or resist. A candidate for “Proprietary Wine of the Vintage,” this beauty should be drunk over the next 14-15 years.(Release date 10/05)Tel. (707) 255-2321; Fax (707) 255-6786