x
  • Country ranking ?

    294
  • Producer ranking ?

    8
  • Decanting time

    3h
  • When to drink

    now to 2040
  • Food Pairing

    roasted chicken

The Tb points given to this wine are the world’s most valid and most up-to-date evaluation of the quality of the wine. Tastingbook points are formed by the Tastingbook algorithm which takes into account the wine ratings of the world's best-known professional wine critics, wine ratings by thousands of tastingbook’s professionals and users, the generally recognised vintage quality and reputation of the vineyard and winery. Wine needs at least five professional ratings to get the Tb score. Tastingbook.com is the world's largest wine information service which is an unbiased, non-commercial and free for everyone.

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Philippe Bascuales worked for two decades with Paul Pontallier at Château Margaux before coming to Inglenook in 2011 (since Pontallier passed away this past spring, Bascuales has returned to Château Margaux, and is now directing both the Bordeaux property and this Rutherford estate). The pace at which he has transformed the wines is nothing less than astonishing, as if the force of this great Napa Valley site had been waiting to be unleashed. It’s not that the wines were troubled in recent vintages; more that they followed the contemporary Napa Valley story of quality being the pinnacle achievement. The 2008, for example, was “sweet, firm and juicy,” with tannins that cushioned the fruit, earning 93 points when I tasted it for the magazine. Bascaules has begun to bring back the voice of the property, a collection of vineyards in the western benchlands of Rutherford, reassembled by Francis Ford Coppola in the pattern of Gustave Niebaum’s original estate. This is the kind of land that made Napa Valley famous. And this is the kind of wine I want to drink. It has the freshness of ripe cabernet sauvignon, with none of the darker, dimpled tones of hyperripe fruit, presenting a delicate red berry scent and the gracious refinement of Rutherford tannins. Some of our tasters reacted to the new oak on the wine, the touch of creaminess French oak brings to the texture, even as they admitted that it was handled with restraint and that the wine showed some tension. The oak is not an issue for me, as the youthful fruit sings through any vessel used to age it, with the message of great vintages to come.

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The Story

Rubicon / During the years when American industry was still in its infancy, a tenacious young sea captain named Gustave Niebaum amassed a small fortune in the Alaskan fur trade. Having achieved financial independence at an early age, Niebaum could have simply retired and still commanded respect from his peers. Instead, a longing for missed European traditions compelled him to launch a winemaking business. Well-read and enthusiastic, Niebaum pursued this goal and in 1880 he founded Inglenook with the intention of creating California wines that would be sought by connoisseurs and command prices equal to those of the famous French, German and Spanish wines. Niebaum spared no expense, and procured the very best vineyards, planted noble varietals and designed a winery that was an engineering marvel of its day. Within ten years of founding Inglenook, Niebaum's wines were lauded by the press, both at home and internationally.

In 1975, Francis Coppola came upon the historic Inglenook property in his quest for a quaint summer home where he could make a little wine in the basemant like his grandparents once did. Though far more immense than what he and his family were initially looking for, Coppola was impressed by the estate's natural beauty and mesmerized bu the story of Gustave Niebaum. Feelong somehow connected to the man who shared a similar immigrant story, a love of wine, and also had a successful career outside the agricultural realm, Coppola vowed to reconstruct the great estate by creating Niebaum-Coppola Estate Winery.

Situated in Rutherford, one of the premier Cabernet Sauvignon growing regions in California, the estate strives to preserve traditions of its predecessor by crafting world-class wines. It took more than twenty years to reunite all of the original vineyards and restore winemaking to the Château. Now that this is complete, the estate has progressed into a new era of innovation, choosing to rename the property Rubicon estate after the flagship wine.

When Francis Coppola set out to craft a world-class proprietary red wine using the historic vines of the famed Inglenook property, he found Caesar's march on Rome – "The crossing of the Rubicon" – an appropriate metaphor in its implied "point of no return". Rubicon reflects the unique terrain of the property. Using only 100% organically-farmed grapes sourced directly from the estate vineyards, Rubicon has become a role model for utherford Cabernet Sauvignon.

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Wine Information

Winemaker Notes; Captivating and complex, the 2012 Rubicon boasts very pronounced dark fruit with aromas of currants, black cherries, blackberries, cinnamon, floral notes and the freshness of thyme and other sweet herbs. The palate shows great volume and nicely integrated flavors, fine grained tannins and subtle oak that works beautifully with the fruit. There is softness and delicacy with layered complexity that is constantly evolving. The finish is long and expressive. 

Blend: 86% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Petit Verdot, 4% Cabernet Franc, 1% Merlot

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Captivating and complex, the 2012 Rubicon boasts very pronounced dark fruit with aromas of currants, black cherries, blackberries, cinnamon, floral notes and the freshness of thyme and other sweet herbs. The palate shows great volume and nicely integrated flavors, fine grained tannins and subtle oak that works beautifully with the fruit. There is softness and delicacy with layered complexity that is constantly evolving. The finish is long and expressive. Blend: 86% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Petit Verdot, 4% Cabernet Franc, 1% Merlot

2012 was one of the best vintages in recent history because of near perfect climate conditions. The entire season was marked by moderate temperatures, which lasted through September and October. Having no heat spikes or rain to contend with in the fall allowed the fruit to hang on the vines longer, giving the grapes better concentration and ripeness as well as more textural dimension and flavor complexity.

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Origin

Rutherford, Napa Valley
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