Looking at the 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon Estate, which was bottled two months prior to my tasting, it too has a Château Margaux-like complexity and elegance, with beautiful notes of crème de cassis, sandalwood, dried flowers, tobacco leaf, and lead pencil. Harvested all pre-fire, it hits the palate with medium to full-bodied richness, silky tannins, and remarkable purity, all making for a quintessential Spottswoode that's going to benefit from 3-5 years of bottle age and keep for 20+ years.

Spottswoode's 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon has been simply tremendous on both occasions I have tasted it so far. Sweet red cherry, red plum, flowers and mint give the 2017 striking freshness to complement its decidedly mid-weight structure. The intense heat of the vintage caused ripening to slow down and yielded a wine with just 13.7% alcohol, which is low for both the estate and Napa Valley in general. Spottswoode was one of the first estates in the valley to adopt a more moderate approach to farming and that really paid off in 2017, as a wine of this level in that year could have only resulted from impeccable farming. In a word: magnificent!