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| Drinking Windows and Values |
| Community Tasting History |
| Community Tasting Notes (average 92.7 pts. and median of 93 pts. in 16 notes) - hiding notes with no text | | | Tasted by WVWine on 5/25/2020 & rated 91 points: Nice bottle of wine with burgers and corn on the cob for Memorial Day. Deep red color. Tastes of berries and medium finish. (678 views) | | | Tasted by stevenjstein on 11/6/2015 & rated 92 points: Big and rich, with decent acidity, but a bit oaky (1444 views) | | | Tasted by chasjacq on 10/25/2014 & rated 93 points: Last one. Really aging nicely, still good fruit and balance. Sad to see it go. Top of the cork was crumbly, despite side storage, but the bottom was OK and the wine was fine. (1533 views) | | | Tasted by budh on 11/22/2012 & rated 91 points: Cassis and cherry aroma, with some smokiness and floral tones. Strong toasty/smoky flavor is a little too dominant for me. Good balance and long finish. Mellow. (2240 views) | | | Tasted by bigdomer on 10/23/2011 & rated 91 points: Wonderful nose. Great dark fruit. I didnt detect any vegetal notes from other TN. (2869 views) | | | Tasted by Kayeman on 12/29/2010 & rated 93 points: And then there were 3 !! Sad only 3 left of this great Napa cab. Really getting a lot of rich dark chocolate and dark red fruit in the mouth. (2500 views) | | | Tasted by Eric on 7/28/2009 & rated 93 points: Mmm, this really is a terrific Napa Cab. It actually seems more forward now than when I had it last year. A little toasty oak on the nose is quickly subsumed by deep, powerful notes of cassis. Textbook Cabernet. A lovely palate, deep, black fruit, lots of ash, olive and leafy tones remind you that yes, this really is Cabernet. No grape jelly here. This is a winemaker who is not worried about some slight vegetal tones in his Cabernet, and thank goodness. Supple, very well balanced, and quite gorgeous. Very nice. (2618 views) | | | Tasted by Eric on 8/8/2008 & rated 92 points: This is a very nice Napa Cabernet that really expresses itself well as Cabernet and not grape jello. A lovely nose of cassis with a pleasing hint of stalk, mmm, a really nice, truly Cabernet, faintly vegetal accent really helps this. The palate is juicy and fresh with black cherry and licorice notes finishing out with a bit of tobacco leaf and bittersweet cocoa. Dusty tannins coat your palate. Very nice balance and freshness here seem to suggest that this will age nicely for a few years, but it is quite irresistible right now. It is a pleasure to see restraint in a new Napa Cab and the fact that the winemaker is not afraid to let a few vegetal elements shine through. In my mind that makes this infinitely more interesting than many of the monstrously ripe and jammy Cabs coming out of late. I am not buying or cellaring a lot of Napa cab, but this is one to add to my list.
Add to that the winery owners have a wonderful story and seem like genuinely nice people, I wish them great success and look forward to future vintages. (2828 views) | | | Tasted by RationalDenial on 7/21/2008: Nothing about my expectations were met by this bottle. I thought it would be silly, cheap, non-serious wine trussed up in an expensive marketing campaign. Wrong on all fronts. It's a delicious, subtle and focused California cab destined for cult celebrity. The nose dashed most of my preconceptions. Ganache, cherry and a nutty earthiness. After some air, the cocoa and fruit gave way to a rich, floral perfume. There's some oak, but it steps lightly and elegantly (65% new French). And whatever else I was expecting died on the surprisingly linear palate. Red fruits, with black cherry dominating, highlight the attack, followed by an earthy mid-palate that builds into chewy tannins with a slightly herbal expression of anise and black tea. A beautiful chalky, chocolate finish arrives and lingers long enough to revive your long dormant memories of your first birthday cake. If your date lives up to this red, it should end in Vegas. (1988 views) | | | Tasted by drdebs on 7/17/2008 & rated 93 points: This is really an impressive bottle of cabernet. It's got beautiful, floral aromatics and the texture of silk velvet with very food-friendly blackberry, currant, and cassis flavors. There is a strong core of tobacco with earth and black tea notes running straight through the center which really moves the wine towards the long, juicy finish. The overall effect is (Ann Noble would kill me) that of a butch-femme wine that really does exemplify date night. We had it with quiche and tomato salad--and if you'd ever told me these would go AT ALL with cab I would have laughed out loud. Organic fruit. Love the label. An excellent splurge wine. (2056 views) |
| Phifer Pavitt Producer website
Proprietors: Suzanne Phifer Pavitt and Shane Pavitt
Winemaker: Ted Osborne
Vineyards: Phifer Pavitt sources its grapes from Temple Family Vineyards’ Lakespring Ranch in Napa Valley. Vineyard manager Arthur Spencer designed and planted this vineyard ten years ago and farms it organically, producing small, intensely flavorful berries. The vineyard sits at 670 feet, in loam soil, with the vines spaced at 7x5. The farming incorporates many features which support its organic dedication---barn owl boxes, indigenous legume cover crop for beneficial insects and soil fertility, ladybug plantings and night harvesting.
The Winery: Phifer Pavitt Wines is a dream of Suzanne Phifer and Shane Pavitt, who moved to the Napa Valley in 2001 and over the course of several years of ‘date nights,’ hatched the idea of their own Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.
Production: approximately 300 cases a year
2005 Phifer Pavitt Cabernet Sauvignon Date Night- Grower: Arthur Spencer from his family’s Temple Family Vineyards
- Harvest: 2005 - A nearly ice cold October morning.
- Brix: Decadently ripe and succulent fruit, hand picked, sorted and straight to the fermenter.
- Ferment: Extended cold soak maceration, wild yeasts, finished in toasted French oak barrels
- Elevage: 17 months in barrel, 65% new French Oak
- pH: Medium
- Alcohol: 14.6%
- Production: 300 cases
- Retail Price: $75.00
Opens with intoxicating aromas of fresh berries, dark chocolate, cut hay, rhubarb, and wild herbs. Then bursts onto the palate with massive brooding dark fruits, accented with chaparral spices, refined toasty oak, tobacco, tea leaves and leather. All that ripeness is held up with an elegant array of structured and chewy tannins. The finish is focused and long. This is Napa Cabernet at its hedonistic best. Drink 2008 to 2015.Cabernet SauvignonCabernet Sauvignon is probably the most famous red wine grape variety on Earth. It is rivaled in this regard only by its Bordeaux stablemate Merlot, and its opposite number in Burgundy, Pinot Noir. From its origins in Bordeaux, Cabernet has successfully spread to almost every winegrowing country in the world. It is now the key grape variety in many first-rate New World wine regions, most notably Napa Valley, Coonawarra and Maipo Valley. Wherever they come from, Cabernet Sauvignon wines always seem to demonstrate a handful of common character traits: deep color, good tannin structure, moderate acidity and aromas of blackcurrant, tomato leaf, dark spices and cedarwood.
Used as frequently in blends as in varietal wines, Cabernet Sauvignon has a large number of common blending partners. Apart from the obvious Merlot and Cabernet Franc, the most prevalent of these are Malbec, Petit Verdot and Carmenere (the ingredients of a classic Bordeaux Blend), Shiraz (in Australia's favorite blend) and in Spain and South America, a Cabernet – Tempranillo blend is now commonplace. Even the bold Tannat-based wines of Madiran are now generally softened with Cabernet SauvignonUSAAmerican wine has been produced since the 1500s, with the first widespread production beginning in New Mexico in 1628. Today, wine production is undertaken in all fifty states, with California producing 84% of all U.S. wine. The continent of North America is home to several native species of grape, including Vitis labrusca, Vitis riparia, Vitis rotundifolia, and Vitis vulpina, but the wine-making industry is based almost entirely on the cultivation of the European Vitis vinifera, which was introduced by European settlers. With more than 1,100,000 acres (4,500 km2) under vine, the United States is the fourth-largest wine producing country in the world, after Italy, Spain, and France.California2021 vintage: "Unlike almost all other areas of the state, the Russian River Valley had higher than normal crops in 2021, which has made for a wine of greater generosity and fruit forwardness than some of its stablemates." - Morgan Twain-Peterson Napa Valley Napa Valley Wineries and Wine (Napa Valley Vintners)Napa ValleySt. Helena |
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