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Viinin Kuvailu
The Story
What a great run we have had with this vineyard. We recently locked up our blocks long term, ensuring that we will be making this wine for many years to come, and we couldn’t be more excited. Stylistically, the 2013 is a combination of the 2012, which had higher acidity and tannin than any previous vintage, and the 2009, which had the most intense dark chocolate flavors. It almost has a sweetness to it, but the wine is bone dry. This extreme site provides incredibly seductive textures and pure sex appeal.
Our approach to winemaking has remained constant since our first vintage. We inspect every grape after it has been removed from the stem. We discard every one that doesn’t meet our standards; typically sacrificing six to eight percent of our fruit during this process. From that stage on, every wine is crafted to maximize balance and textures. Each of our vineyards imparts their fruit with such pure flavors that we strive to bring all of the components into harmony.
All of our wines are aged in new French barrels, including Remond, Francois Freres and Gamba for our Syrahs and Darnajou and Taransaud for Cabernet Sauvignon. We evaluate each barrel of wine biweekly, allowing the wines to dictate to us how they are treated in terms of racking, barrel stirring, sulfur additions and bottling.
While we are not open to the public, we enjoy hosting private tastings at our winemaking facility.
Wine Information
Parker 100 points Another perfect wine is Bevan’s equal part blend of Merlot and Cabernet Franc, the 2012 Proprietary Red Sugarloaf Mountain. Notes of unsmoked cigar tobacco, forest floor, pen ink mulberries, blackberries and spring flowers soar from this inky/purple-colored 2012. The wine possesses great intensity, remarkable unctuosity and thickness, and perfect integration of acidity, alcohol, tannin and wood. Aged in equal parts new Gamba and Darnajou barrels, there are 225 cases of this fabulous wine. Drink now-2032.
As I wrote last year, Russell Bevan and his partner, Victoria de Cresenzo, are turning out truly mind-blowing, big, rich, majestic wines. Bevan Cellars has hit the bull’s eye with a bevy of incredible efforts that showcases fabulous vineyard sources. Many of these have not been exploited by others. A warning though – these are super-rich, dense, powerful, massive wines. While the tannins are elevated, they are silky and well-integrated, and the wines are neither heavy nor overbearing. Nor is Bevan afraid of alcohol, but he never goes over-the-top.
The bottled 2012s have all seen about 75% new Taransaud French oak barrels and the rest tend to be either Gamba or Darnajou, the latter probably the most difficult high-quality barrel to obtain because of the small production.