2009 Cru 32 Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley

The wine’s core of dark, brooding fruit takes a full day to emerge and is preceded by a complex array of aromas that start out at the tobacco-cedar end of the spectrum and develop with decanting into notes of fresh cherries, kirsch liqueur, kitchen spices, and grilled meat. The eventual flavors to show themselves are of decidedly dark fruits: red-black currants, blackberries, and black cherry. There’s an underlying earthy-meatiness to the wine. Stagecoach is, indeed, a great steak cabernet, with fine acidity balancing the rich fruit and ripe tannins. It will certainly benefit from future years in the bottle. At release, we feel this is showing the best of the three Cabernet Sauvignons but each will have its own different peaks and valleys.