Pick My Next Bottle – A 2004 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon for Christmas Eve

The December Installment of Pick My Next Bottle focuses on Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon from the 2004 vintage. As I mentioned in the first installment, the purpose of this series is to provide insight into specific wines or producers you may currently have in your cellar. The winning bottle will be opened on Christmas Eve. 2004 was an average vintage in Napa Valley but all the wines I have chosen below have an exceptional track record for aging well. It will be hard to go wrong at almost 20 years of age with any of these bottles. All of the reviews below were from a vintage retrospective tasting by the Wine Advocate in 2012.

The Contenders

• 2004 Dalla Valle Cabernet Sauvignon – No Maya was made in 2004, but the 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon Dalla Valle Vineyards possesses a beautiful bouquet of scorched earth, cedar, black currants, and licorice. It is full-bodied with sweet tannin, a voluminous, savory mouthfeel, significant complexity, generous depth and richness, and easy accessibility because of the sweetness of the tannin. This is a beauty from one of the most impressive terroirs on the eastern hillside slopes of the Oakville Corridor. (12/07). 93 points from The Wine Advocate.
• 2004 Chateau Montelena Cabernet Sauvignon – A classic, old style Napa Cabernet Sauvignon, Montelena’s 2004 reveals beautiful purity along with lots of creme de cassis fruit, a full-bodied mouthfeel, and a long finish. By Montelena standards, it is a bit more powerful than usual (14.1% alcohol). These wines have an uncanny ability to age for 2-3 decades, and while the 2004 is slightly more forward and evolved than other vintages have been (2001 and 2002), it should last for 20-25 years. (04/14). 94 points from the Wine Advocate.
• 2004 Pahlmeyer – Composed of 79% Cabernet Sauvignon, 11% Merlot, 5% Cabernet Franc, 4% Petit Verdot and 1% Malbec, the saturated purple-colored 2004 Proprietary Red Wine is a wonderful monster in the making. It boasts a dense purple color as well as notes of beef blood, creme de cassis, licorice, incense and spring flowers. It looks more like a 2-year-old wine than one that has seen its tenth birthday. Mouth-coating, unctuously textured, corpulent but well-delineated, this is a spectacular Proprietary Red that is even greater than I remember it in its youth. (04/14). 98 points from the Wine Advocate.

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Thanks for voting! I’d love to see a comment below on why you picked one bottle over another.

Also, let me know if you have any suggestions for the January Installment of Pick My Next Bottle.