2013 bryant family vineyard, cabernet sauvignon, napa valley
Why We're Buying
If you know the Bryant Family Vineyard, it's probably because of its 100 cabernet sauvignon from Pritchard Hill. The red wine has earned multiple rankings on Wine Spectator's Top 100 list, include an 11th place finish for the 1997 vintage. Since the estate only releases 500 to 600 bottles of Bryant Family Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon per year, the asking price is around $650.
Critics Scores
Jeb Dunnuck
The inky, opaque colored 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon is a backward, brute of a wine that’s packed with potential, but is going to need some serious bottle age to shine. Loaded with notions of crème de cassis, blueberry, earth, chocolate, and graphite, it’s incredibly full-bodied and dense on the palate, with gorgeous purity of fruit. While it holds everything relatively tight and close to its vest now, with plenty of tannin and acidity, it’s a beautiful wine that needs another 4-5 years of bottle age and will keep for another 2+ decades. 96+
James Suckling
The purity of fruit here is terrific with licorice, black currant and oyster shell. Blackberry too. Full body. The finish is overwhelming with such great intensity and grip. High-tensioned austerity. Energetic and intense. Tannins are austere.
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The flagship wine, the 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon Estate, comes from a magnificent hillside vineyard overlooking Lake Hennessey (13 acres) and is 100 Cabernet Sauvignon. This wine has an incredible track record, with some legendary efforts such as the 1995, 1997, and most recent vintages since 2005, as well as the 2013 all beauties. The classic purity of blueberry and blackberry fruit as well as white flowers and subtle background oak is followed by a full-bodied, voluptuously textured, multi-layered wine that is stunningly lush, with sweet, sweet tannin and beautiful purity and length. This excellent wine can be drunk early on or cellared for another 25 or more years. (RP)
Wine Spectator
A bold, dense, expressive style that packs a punch, while also exhibiting grace and balance. The core flavors of blackberry, fresh-turned earth, licorice and tobacco show harmony. Ends long and tannic. Best to cellar this.
Vinous
Bright medium ruby. Heady scents of blueberry, blackberry, licorice and graphite minerality are complemented by coffee and briney olive notes. Much less unctuous on the palate than the nose suggests; not austere but juicy, backward and firmly built. The wine's concentrated black fruit flavors are given sex appeal by graphite minerality and an element of sweet oak, with integrated acidity providing terrific definition and energy. This wonderfully suave, fine-grained wine possesses a serious tannic structure for a long and graceful evolution in bottle. I suspect it will be longer-lived than the 2012. Winemaker Marc Gagnon noted that 2013 was an ideal vintage that featured an early set and an early harvest, with no extremes. (ST)