PYM-RAE NAPA VALLEY TESSERON ESTATE 750ML 2019

The Pym-Rae wines I tasted with Alfred Tesseron and Estate Manager Jérôme Ledit (2016-2019) all possess some measure of intensity, elegance, excellent balance, and freshness. Encompassing all those qualities is this 2019 vintage, seamless and simply mind-boggling. Pure blackberry fruit, creme de cassis, and graphite are nuanced by garrigue and cocoa nibs laced with orange essence. Medium to full-bodied with youthful blue fruit, spiced plum, and violets that meld together, creating a profoundly symphonic and lyrical fruit melody that is impossible to resist. The vines are surrounded by a pristine wilderness and many native California shrubs; those qualities emerge in the wine as sagebrush, fragrant Bay Laurel, and layers of ironstone mineral and earth. A kind of soy-soaked cedarwood rounds out this meticulous wine. The Tesseron family, owners of Château Pontet-Canet, purchased the estate in 2016. It was owned by the late actor Robin Williams, who had planted the vines in the late 1990s. Jérôme Ledit is the Estate Manager and Michel Rolland is the consultant oenologist. The vineyards are planted with Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc and have been dry-farmed since the first day in 2016 that Alfred Tesseron set foot on the property. It is already unquestionably one of Napa Valley's greatest understated assets.

The 2019 Pym-Rae is made up of 80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Cabernet Franc and 5% Merlot, all aged in a combination of 45% new French oak barriques and small (260-gallon) concrete tanks. Impressively ripe and concentrated, it offers scents of cassis, violet and hints of dark chocolate on the nose, while the full-bodied palate is silky-smooth, framed by dusty tannins on the long, focused finish. Yes, it's somewhat Bordeaux-like in shape, but it's fully ripe, with black cherries emerging on the finish, along with the slightest touch of alcoholic warmth.