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Harlan Estate 2007

Harlan Estate, Napa Valley, United States

Harlan Estate
Napa Valley United States
  • 99
    Points
  • The 293 best
    of 3 290 954
    wines globally
  • 19 Pros of
    19 recommend
    this wine
605 99
  • Taste
  • Moment

  • Country ranking ?

    83

  • Producer ranking ?

    14

  • Decanting time

    3h

  • When to drink

    now to 2045

  • Food Pairing

    Roast Leg of Lamb with Mint Pesto & Mustard Crumbs

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100 Parker Points: The prodigious 2007 Harlan Estate reminds me of a hypothetical blend of the 2002 with a touch of the controversial 1997. Dense plum/purple-colored with sweet aromas of barbecue smoke, blueberries, blackberries, cassis, licorice, hot rocks and subtle oak, it is a splendidly opulent, pure wine with a skyscraper-like texture as well as stunningly deep fruit that expands gracefully across the palate. The finish lasts nearly a fu...

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The Story

With the founding of Harlan Estate in 1984, we embarked upon our mission of creating a “first growth” of California. The estate’s early vineyard development began with just six acres. Today our planting is essentially complete, with nearly forty acres under vine to the classic varietals: cabernet sauvignon (70%), merlot (20%), cabernet franc (8%), and petit verdot (2%). Invariably, the finished wine is predominately cabernet sauvignon, which w...

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Wine Information

2007
A superb growing season. Lower-than-normal rainfall (21 inches),mostly late in the winter.

Spring was dry. Budbreak occurred April 17. A cool summer (only two days over 100° degrees and just twenty-six days over 90°) followed by an even cooler September,which allowed for a slow and deliberate ripening and a very reasonable harvest pace (September 4 through October 11).

We managed optimal maturity in most all of the lots, yielding ...

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Average Bottle Price

2023 2020 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011
1 480€ +31.8% 1 123€ +24.2% 904€ +1.6% 890€ +0.5% 886€ +7.9% 821€ +4.7% 784€ -28.6% 1 098€

This data comes from the FINE Auction Index, a composite of average prices for wines sold at commercial auctions in 20 countries. The average prices from each year have been collected since 1990. This chart plots the index value of the average price of the wines.

Tasting note

color

Deep and Ruby red

ending

Long, Smooth and Pure

flavors

Blackberry, Blackcurrant, Blueberry, Voluptuous and Cherry

nose

Youthful, Pure, Fresh and Ripe

recommend

Yes

taste

High alcohol content, Concentrated, Well-Integrated, Youthful, Full-bodied, Harmonious, Ripe, Focused and Too tannic

Written Notes

Deep, ruby red colour. Intense and spicy nose with ripe black currants and brambles, dark chocolate, and violets. Full-bodied palate has silky structure and high alcohol strength that is well-integrated into the palate. Elegant, dense and harmonious wine that has a long and concentrated finish.
-
  • 95p

Deep ruby, licorice, blackberries, chocolate, intense and layered nose. Palate doesn't feel quite as exciting, classic Napa, and maybe somewhat more elegant style than former bottles I've tried. 92

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  • 92p

Good deep ruby-red. Knockout nose combines dark berries, graphite, cedar and flowers. The palate offers uncanny clarity and depth of flavor, combining elegance and density in the way of a great grand cru site. Wonderful energy here, as well as inner-palate floral lift. A great vintage for Harlan Estate, with nothing overdone about it. Incidentally, I had the opportunity to taste every vintage of Harlan Estate in an extraordinary vertical tasting on this visit, and this 2007 was as strong as any wine to date from outstanding property estate. (I will publish the results of this tasting in the coming weeks.)

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  • 97p

The 2007 Harlan Estate is fabulous. Explosive and dense, with tremendous persistence, the 2007 has all of the opulence and raciness that makes the wines from this vintage so distinctive. Scents of tobacco, leather and mocha develop in the glass, but above all else, the 2007 is a wine of sumptuous richness. It will continue to deliver considerable pleasure over the next two decades or so. What a wine! Empting describes 2007 as a warm, but not excessively hot, year with a long growing season. The wines presented naturally high dry extracts. Because of that, Levy and Empting opted for macerations that were a bit longer than usual.

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  • 98p

2007 Harlan intense, opaque, black. Concentrated blackcurrant nose. Palate obvious, intense, over-concentrated, intense, flat.

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A superb growing season. Lower-than-normal rainfall (21 inches), mostly late in the winter.Spring was dry. Budbreak occurred April 17. A cool summer (only two days over 100° degrees and just twenty-six days over 90°) followed by an even cooler September, which allowed for a slow and deliberate ripening and a very reasonable harvest pace (September 4 through October 11). We managed optimal maturity in most all of the lots, yielding 2.2 tons per acre, on average.

tasting notes

The master blend, still in barrels pending bottling in February of 2010, is extremely attractive now, possessing all the hallmark attributes: lavish aromatics, classically structured mouthfeel, and supple texture. This very promising vintage will be among our very best offerings.

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The wine wasn’t decanted in advance, so I had the opportunity to follow the evolution of the wine during almost an hour, while chatting with manager Don Weaver and Paul Roberts (manager of Bond Estates). And I really enjoyed this wine - it's another great or even perfect wine from Harlan Estate. The color is dark purple, almost opaque, and the nose was already open and intensely fruit driven when poured from the decanter almost directly after decanting it. Although it’s so young and youthful, it already show some of the typical notes of Harlan Estate, the ripe and extremely pure dark fruit flavors with its stony mineral and graphite qualities, a touch of grassiness and a slitghtly sweetish note of the brand new and expesive oak barrels. Compared to the 2006 vintage, this is a bit richer, and even though it’s young and firm, there’s enough glycerol and mountfeel to balance the tannins. What I really love about Harlan Estate in great vintages such as this, is the impeccable balance, the purity, the energy, the length, and the layers of flavors that linger for at least a minute or even two. Given its youth, it was surprisingly easy to enjoy already today, even though I find it to be a bit sad to drink it over the coming years – the true magic of Harlan is rarely expressed before the wine has turned ten years, or so. This is another modern classic of Harlan Estate, and it may well be as profound as the 2001, 2002 and 2005 within just a few more years of bottle age.
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  • 98p
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Information

Origin

Oakville, Napa Valley

Vintage Quality

Outstanding

Value For Money

Best buy

Investment potential

Good

Fake factory

None

Glass time

2h

Inside Information

The prodigious 2007 Harlan Estate reminds me of a hypothetical blend of the 2002 with a touch of the controversial 1997. Dense plum/purple-colored with sweet aromas of barbecue smoke, blueberries, blackberries, cassis, licorice, hot rocks and subtle oak, it is a splendidly opulent, pure wine with a skyscraper-like texture as well as stunningly deep fruit that expands gracefully across the palate. The finish lasts nearly a full minute. Because of its overwhelming richness and sweet tannins, this brilliant wine seems to be approachable now, but I suspect further nuances and complexity will emerge after 4-5 years in the bottle. This wine will still be going strong at age 25-30. Like the offerings from its sister estate, Bond, these Harlan Estate offerings are uncompromisingly brilliant examples of Napa viticulture and winemaking at its finest. Kudos to proprietor Bill Harlan.

Run by Bill Harlan, Harlan Estate’s debut vintage was 1990. The second wine culled out from this extraordinary estate’s barrels is called The Maiden, with a production generally under 2,000 cases,. Yet it often represents 50% of the estate’s production given the Draconian selection process employed at Harlan.

 

Wine Advocate #192
Dec 2010		 Robert M. Parker, Jr. 100 Drink: N/A $925-$1380 (500)
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