2005 Rubicon Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Captain's Reserve

Community Tasting Notes (24) Avg Score: 90.1 points

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  2/26/2022 - AllRed wrote: 90 Points

  4th Saturday Group Cellar Diminishment (Sue’s): Black cherry, leather and dark berry fruit tones. Similar to the 2004, with soft tannins and good fruit. Perhaps just a bit more structure than the 2004. 90+ pts. (SS)

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  8/29/2021 - Glenn Gilbert Likes this wine: 96 Points

  14.3% alcohol; real cork with a maximum wine penetration of 2.3 cm in a 5 cm cork -- almost half way through, perhaps because I had cellared it horizontally through most of its life; heavy, quality foil; aroma from the cork is cassis (schwarzer Johannisbeersaft in Germany), dark stone fruit, dried figs, wood, alcohol; fast to medium legs, inky purple; opened at room temperature (25 degrees C), vinturied (adding about 3 hours of oxygenation), and tasted about 15 minutes later; nose of sweet/sour dark cherries, peaches, Granny Smith apples, trace of vanilla, oak; although full-bodied, the wine is lighter than one would expect from a Cab; my tasting revealed that even after 16 years there are still hefty tannins, but tempered by cassis, cherries, and vanilla/oak, resting in a bed of minerals and forest floor; tannins, sweetness, fruitiness, and sourness swirl around each other in a complex layering; the medium finish projects a hint of fruit yanked between sweetness, sourness, and bitterness, leaving the tongue with an uncomfortable feeling that it's not time to relax but to go on, and here I mean not to drink more wine but to attack one's life with a new approach; I'll be 85 next month and have plenty of life to think about; the extra cellaring has done this wine nothing but good; I'm not used to awarding a score in the higher 90s, but here goes; pair it with grilled beef steak, St Louis ribs, or leg of lamb, or with bison or wild game, like venison

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  5/25/2018 - mydi wrote: 90 Points

  A little thin the first night. Then let it breathe for 3 hours the next night.. still quite impressive. A really rich cab.

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  7/19/2017 - mydi wrote: 90 Points

  Just a terrific, deeply concentrated wine. Lots of fruit in this..

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  8/5/2016 - CLOrta wrote: 90 Points

  Drinking well. Slightly past peak.

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