99 Points
Legendary

Araujo Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Eisele 2010

The Araujo Eisele 2010 has become a truly ravishing wine, benefiting immensely from a full decade of cellar time. Built like a thoroughbred, this Cabernet blend is a remarkable experience now and will continue to delight for another the remainder of this decade. Intense notes of voluptuous dark fruit are deftly balanced by plush tannins and perfectly integrated oak. The majestic finish lasts a full minute now with tantalizing notes of espresso, truffles, and exotic herbs. This is one of the most graceful Napa reds we’ve sampled, ever.

Eisele Vineyard Winery

Since 1971, some of California's most age worthy and intensely flavored Cabernet Sauvignons have been made from grapes grown at the Eisele Vineyard, located on an alluvial fan near the northern end of the Napa Valley, just east of Calistoga. Protected by the Palisades Mountains to the north and cooled by westerly breezes from the Chalk Hill Gap, this 38-acre vineyard is planted on well-drained cobbly soils that produce a low yielding crop of exceptionally concentrated fruit.

The wines produced in this remarkable place have a rare combination of forthright character with precisely defined flavors and fine textures, deep concentration without any sense of heaviness, and the capacity to develop profound complexity with age. The Eisele Vineyard was originally planted in the 1880s to Zinfandel and Riesling, and has been under vine continuously since then. The first Cabernet was planted in 1964.

The Eisele Vineyard has been farmed organically since 1998, and biodynamically since 2000. We do this for two reasons: our belief that these practices result in better wine, and our commitment to caring for this pristine vineyard in the most thoughtful and conscientious way that we can.

The Wine

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