1978 Beringer Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Private Reserve

Community Tasting Notes (18) Avg Score: 92.4 points

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  11/9/2023 - G_H wrote: 97 Points

  Wow, after an unfortunately flawed bottled this example showed incredibly well. Old school napa through and through it was showing at least 15 - 20 years younger, with a great black and blue fruit, graphite, pencil shavings and a great structure. What a beauty!

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  2/5/2023 - Cailles wrote: flawed

  30x California 1978: So many wines from this great Californian vintage at the age of 45 certainly qualifies as a “once in a lifetime” event. A few observations: 1) The quality was very high (almost all my ratings above 90pts). And only four faulty wines (2x corked, 2x over the hill/flawed, sadly those two were the Ridge Monte Bello and the Phelps Insignia). 2) The wines are ready to drink, the tannins have melted but the tension and freshness remain high - across the board. 3) There is still lots of fruit left and I was surprised how most wines didn’t show lots of tertiary aromas (find me the Bdx 1982 without tertiary aromas!). IMO, more than a handful of the wines could continue to improve for a few years. 4) Style wise, these are obviously quite different from today’s Napa wines with much less ripeness and more mineral accents. But hardly any wine we had would be mistaken for a Bordeaux in a blind tasting (unlike 80s/90s Dominus). 5) Best reds: Inglenook Limited Cask, Beaulieu GDL Reserve, Stags Leap Cask 23 4.5l (all 96pts), Heitz Bella Oaks, Simi Reserve, Stag’s Leap Cask 23 0.75l (all 95pts). The best wine overall, however, was the magical Late Harvest Riesling from Phelps (98pts).
  
  TN: Corked.

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  1/28/2023 - G_H wrote: flawed

  1978 California Cabernet Horizontal: Unfortunately corked.

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  1/28/2023 - sirpat00 wrote: flawed

  California 1978 (Zunfthaus zur Waag, Zurich): Grand tasting of 1978 California wines, mostly from Napa. Main takeaways: i/ surprisingly high quality on average for wines that were not intended for such long-term aging with plenty of primary fruit left, ii/ but within the detail nonetheless a broad range with the worst few suffering from clear signs of fatigue while the best showed hardly age, iii/ top wines were Phelps Cab Sauv (97), Firestone Cab Sauv (95), and Beaulieu George de Latour Private Reserve (95). Full list sorted by score included in the tasting story.
  
  Tasting note:
  Unfortunately tainted by cork, hard to discern anything beyond the cardboard notes.

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  5/12/2022 - MC2 Wines wrote:

  Pre 1990 Cali Cab + 1981 Birthday Surprise! (Cowford Chophouse): Completely different experience from Jeff's. This had been opened and double-decanted before it was brought to the restaurant. Continued to open up over time. Almost came across as a bit young. A reminder that while Beringer now to me is a mass produced wine that I wouldn't really seek out back in the day they were one of the pioneers. Better than I expected.

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View all 18 Community Tasting Notes

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