2001 Harlan Bordeaux Blend - USA - California - Napa - Napa Valley - Red

best U.S. wine ever drink. a strong CS with a finish full of merlot . smooth!

Intense but balanced, lush mouth feel, rich tannin and incredibly long finish. Think I prefer the 2001 Sloan a bit more.

Delicious, but I think that I'll wait a couple of years before opening the next one.

As reported in Oeno-File Volume 2 Issue 3, Harlan?s 2001 offerings, the Estate and the Maiden, from barrel were both superb examples of Napa Valley?s famed 2001 vintage. From bottle, they continue to impress. Simultaneously powerful, lilting, and haunting scents of coconut, espresso, milk chocolate covered cherry bon bons, black currants, sweet herbs, and seared rare beef tenderloin with traces of mineral and chalk. Intense yet ethereal flavors of glace de viande, soy sauce, concentrated milk chocolate, and cherry with a finish of well over a minute. Deeply colored with a few thick slow moving legs that are quite dark themselves. Tannins present as negligible due the depth of fruit. Acidity can'tbe separated out as a discrete component of the wine ? that means it is perfect. The wine continues to expand in power as it rests in the glass ? apparently there is no limit to its reserves because it was still gaining in strength with the final glass. The wine was aged in oak for 28 months prior to being bottled unfined and unfiltered. Undoubtedly, the Harlan Estate 2001 ousts the foursome of 1994 and 1997 Harlan Estate and 1994 and 1997 Bryant Family Cabernets as my new reference standard for Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon if not world Cabernets. Completely intoxicating from the first glass ? and alcohol has nothing whatever to do with it.