
Corison Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2019 96pts
Shipping is Included on 6 or More Bottles.
96 Points Wine Enthusiast
Savory and complicated in saline, woody notes of cedar and dry tannin, this old-school wine is dark and structured, aged 20 months in French oak, half of it new. Brooding black fruit and clove give it an edgy richness that is restrained and balanced by underlying acidity. Enjoy best 2029–2039.
Cellar Selection
96 Points Wine & Spirits
The 2019 vintage might be something of an outlier for Cathy Corison, who picked two weeks later than usual, taking advantage of the cool season from summer into fall. This wine is, in fact, an idealized version of her benchland cabernet sauvignon, holding on to the elegance she regularly achieves, while adding a luscious textural beauty that more often comes from bottle age. James Conley of NYC’s Keen’s Chophouse found the aroma suggested a more delicate wine than the density and extract this one carries in its “cabernet grape tannins and intriguing, lifted fruit. If someone said, ‘I love Napa, but show me what I’m missing.’ I’d say, ‘Well, try this.’” Warm and explosive in its energy, this wine carries an imprint of the benchland soils in the play of darkness and light, in the detailed tannins that make you crave another taste
94 Points Wine Spectator
A very fresh, floral-laced style, offering a bright beam of cassis and plum gelée laced with flashes of violet, hibiscus and rose petal. Nicely grounded through the finish, with alder and warm earth hints filling in. Approachable, but this has more to show in time. Best from 2023.
94 Points James Suckling
A perfumed nose of blackberries, dark cherries, cedar, cocoa and nutmeg. Violets too. Medium body with fine tannins and bright acidity. Fresh and refined with a bright core of wild fruit and a long, flavorful finish. Drink or hold.
93 Points Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Delicate herbal shadings accent the cassis notes on the nose of Corison's 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon. It's classic Corison, balanced and concentrated without being showy or weighty, silky in feel, with a long, lingering finish and two decades of ageability.
Wine Notes
The entire spectrum of Cabernet Sauvignon fruit flavors is present and accounted for, from red cherries and raspberries through blueberries, to purple plums, black cassis and marionberries, for remarkable complexity. A floral perfume of dried roses, violets and lavender is already jumping out of the glass. Signature Rutherford Dust minerality joins baking spices, notes of cocoa, dried thyme, and a whiff of tar and anise. Tannins that are firm and grippy, though velvety, lend structure and mouthfeel. It is going to be a lot of fun watching this wine over time. - Cathy Corison
Former Claremont Local, Cathy Corison, Winemaker.
Cathy’s winemaking journey began nearly 50 years ago when she took a wine appreciation course at Pomona College on a complete whim. She fell in love with wine for all the usual reasons, but, as a biology major, was also taken by the fact that wine is the result of a fascinating collaboration among a series of living systems. Two years later she graduated, and two days after that, arrived in the Napa Valley, bent on making wine. A master’s degree in Enology at UC Davis followed, and then a harvest internship at Freemark Abbey in 1978. Winemaking positions included Yverdon in 1979-1980 and then Chappellet Vineyard for the 1980’s. In 1987, toward the end of her tenure at Chappellet, there was a wine inside her that needed to get out and she began to buy grapes and barrels (instead of cars and houses). Using other wineries’ excess capacity while continuing to moonlight at Staglin, York Creek and Long Meadow Ranch, Corison Winery was born.
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