Last night with grilled venison chops and oven roasted beets and yams. I haven't opened a '97 Beringer PR for a number of years. I opened and decanted (there was a fair amount of sediment) and started drinking upon decanting. The wine was still deep inky almost black with just a hint of clearing at the rim. The nose was pouring from the bottle while I was decanting. Great depth in the nose of crushed currants, creme de cassis and smoke. In the glass the nose continued to evolve showing black fruits, vanilla, anise, and that distinctive Napa dust aroma. Still fairly hefty in the glass with substanitial forward concentrated black fruit, berries, plums and cassis. Smooth as silk and well framed by plush yet firm tannic structure. As with most '97's fairly low acid but the wine wasn't cloying nor did it overpower the food. So far I've been impressed by most all of the '97 Napa Cabs that I've opened recently and the concerns about them falling apart hasn't happened as far as I can tell. Certainly an "A" on the Dale Scale.
1997 Beringer Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon
Feb 18, 2007
5 Replies
'97 was an extremely good year for cabs in Napa and Sonoma (and other full bodied reds in Northern California too). Alas, all mine are drunk up.
Jose
I'm still sitting on a couple '97 Gallo of Sonoma's (standard bottling). The biggest over-achieving wine of all time. I did have one 6 months ago and it was showing VERY WELL. I think it has at least another 10 years of life left in it.
Sean
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I've had this one, almost since its release, both decanted and poured-n- swirlled, and have declared it quite good. I've been tapping into my '97s, and have found few, if any, "falling apart." Thanks for the TN's. I'll get analytical with a few of my last bottles of this, and do a comparison set of notes.
Ninety-seven might not have matched '94, or '85, but was still, IMHO, a very, very good CA vintage, especially for Napa.
Hunt
'85 is an interesting vintage, as I think that many of the wines didn't develop the way that had been envisioned at release. To wit, many of the wines dried out prematurely. OTOH, '87 was IMO the best of the decade for both Cabernets and Zinfandels. And, to me, '94 -- as good as it is -- has been overshadowed by '91... but my judgment might be clouded by the insane price increases that took place in the interim. I agree that '97 looks to be a good year, perhaps a great year, but alas I bought very little from that year because I'd been priced out of the market. FWIW, I bought quite a bit more from '98 and have been *very* favorably impressed (so far) with how they've developed.
Mark Lipton
I too have been impressed with the '98's and since it was considered a vintage that wasn't "up to par" with other 90's vintages the pricing was almost reasonable. I found the '97 vintage to be very, very ripe with very low acidity, very soft plush tannins and tons of concentrated fruit. Many folks in the wine world wondered about the ageability of these wines. I've found, for the most part, that if properly stored they've held up well and have lost a bit of the baby fat and have gained a bit of complexity.
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