Hoopes Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville 2006

This beautiful wine awakens in phases through four hours and more. At uncorking, the nose resonates with waves of earth, herbs, vegetables, flowers and fruits, including intermittently strong notes of black cherry, raspberry, eucalyptus, beets, rhubarb, sweet cigar box and clay. Over several hours, chocolate is added to the medley, along with hints of caramel, plum and faint petroleum, all helping to balance the vegetal influences. The palate launches tight and unbalanced in favor of vegetal flavors without much spread. Beets and rhubarb dominate the vegetal array. At two hours, the wine begins to integrate, developing a smooth silky mouthfeel supported by firm tannins that create a promising scaffolding for continued evolution. From three hours, a pleasant, slightly sour acidity frames pops of black cherry, deep blackberry, faint plum, and sweet tobacco, flowing in delicious counterpoint to a pleasant fugue of pepper and spice that comes and goes on the finish. At four hours, pepper and spice increase on the top, and the mouthfeel turns to textured velvet on the front, as the wine becomes a dryer version of itself, with great complexity spreading across the top and back of the palate during the wonderfully long finish. Dark fruits, beets and rhubarb sustain throughout, but as integration occurs, they take their place nicely in the harmonies of flavors that evolve in this truly superb wine. The wine shows best between three and five hours.

Big fruit with a velvety finish