The State Lane Vineyard
Yountville, Napa Valley

🍷 The 2015 State Lane Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon is 10 years old this year! It’s always fun and enlightening tasting these big, rich, valley floor wines throughout their lives.

🗓️ The ten year interval is one of my favorite tasting markers on the library timeline for big ageworthy wines like this, as they display all of the wonderful juxtapositions that makes well-made and properly-aged wine so fascinating to taste, and drink!

⏳ At ten years … I still find youthful, primary and exuberant dark, black berry aromas with contrasting aged, secondary and subtle hints of cedar and tobacco on the nose which carries through to the palate.

⏳ At ten years, the mouthfeel is framed by robust, energetic tannins, although they are resolving, and are rich and chewy, and rounding. The finish is long and lingering, although far less astringent than this wine was in its bold and energetic youth.

🌱🌲This wine still has a long life ahead of it, but its in a beautiful place right now … like being at the age when knowledge transitions into wisdom … being old enough to know better yet too young to resist.

⚾️ This wine was rated 95 at release. I agreed with that rating, and with proper decanting for about 90 minutes, I think it would rate 96 now … which brings to mind the interesting concept of Spin Rate, a metric that MLB scouts use in evaluating pitchers.

📡 Stay tuned for my next post, as I dive into the interesting connection between Spin Rates of baseball pitchers and wine ageability. (There is a Chicago Cubs connection in honor of Dear Ol’ Dad as well!)

Chris Corley Wines | Heritage & Tradition
http://www.chriscorley.wine