Dalla Valle - Cabernet Sauvignon Maya 1991

THE WINE ADVOCATE: "The 1991 Maya (made from equal proportions of Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon) has developed incredibly since I tasted it nearly a year ago and rated it 94. The wine is black/purple-colored and offers up a compelling bouquet of flowers, minerals, black fruits, vanilla, and spices. There is huge extraction of fruit, full body, outstanding purity and balance, moderate tannin, and a tremendous layered feel on the palate. All of this intensity and richness is brilliantly pulled off without any sense of heaviness. I can understand wanting to drink this wine immediately as it is an extraordinarily impressive young wine, but it should be given another 4-6 years of cellaring; it is a candidate for 25 years of aging. It is also a strong candidate for a three-digit score in a few years. This is a winemaking tour de force!"

THE WINE CELLAR INSIDER: "Coconut, coffee bean, smoke, licorice, earth and ripe blackberries with dark cherries to round it out, the wine is juicy, rich, ripe and full bodied. Produced in a style that grabs the middle ground between ripe, modernity and classic, there is a lot to like about the wine."

WINE SPECTATOR: " Beautifully defined, ripe, rich fruit, with tight, sharply focused, deeply concentrated currant, black cherry, plum and wild berry, picking up complex anise, pencil lead and cedar notes. Shows rich tannins on the finish, but the fruit pushes through with ease. A stunning wine that could well last another 20 years.--'81/'91 California Cabernet retrospective. 500 cases made. "