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.
News
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate / From the valley floor, the 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon Lotus Vineyard is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon in this vintage and shows its multidimensional aromatics of violets, forest floor, blueberry and blackberry liqueur. It is backward, vibrant and young – very much in the 2013 classic style of enormous richness, length and overall weight. However, it cuts a suave and discreet feel across the palate. This is a stunner that won’t be ready for a good 4-5 years and could last as long as 40 or more.
Wine Description
The Story
Out of the three Dana Estate owned vineyards, the Lotus vineyard located on St. Helena hillsides, stands at 1200 feet above sea level with a beautiful panoramic view of the Napa Valley floor.
This steep hillside vineyard is spread over the rocky, low-yielding soils with Western exposure. Thanks to the influence of the afternoon sun, the wines shows ripe and rich fruitiness while the three to twelve inches, fractured grey bedrock soil generates the marked mineral structure to the wine.
“This is incredibly dry, well-drained soil that has very low water holding capacity and in dry, warm vintages it reflects outstanding a level of grape ripeness,” Vawter sums up.
Wine Information
The 2013 vintage marks the start of a prolonged dry period in Napa. With only 6-8 inches of rain all year, total rainfall was approximately 80% less than 2012. Most of the rain we received fell in March and April. With such a dry season we removed our cover crops early, so that any water in the soil would be left for the vines. While there were a few heat spikes in July, August, and September, the average temperatures were moderate allowing the grapes to ripen fully while retaining structure and acidity. There was a little rain on September 21st, but the dry windy conditions kept the moisture of being any concern to fruit quality. October followed with perfect ripening conditions. The warm days helped the vines through the final stages of flavor and tannin development. The below average night time temperatures helped to retain the acidity in the grapes.