90 Connoisseurs Guide to Wine

"There is more ripeness here than we generally like, but this wine gets high praise nonetheless because it has solid, not quite juicy fruit at its heart, and it boasts genuine complexity in its berryish, black walnut, lightly jammy aromas and flavors. It is certainly a weighty wine on the palate, yet it makes good use of balancing acidity and supportive tannins in avoiding a tendency to sprawl. Instead, it winds up as a big, decently focused effort whose best uses with food might be with nuts and cheeses or as a mate to an old-fashioned mutton chop."