Score: |
97+ JG. "The more I drink California cabernets from the decade of the 1970s, the more I am convinced that I have a slight preference for the style of the 1975s over their more highly touted brethren from the riper year of 1974. The brilliant 1975 Martha’s Vineyard is certainly pretty persuasive evidence that 1975 is indeed a great, great year for cabernet in Napa, as the wine is beautifully deep, pure and still a tad on the young side at age thirty-six! The magical and deep-pitched nose offers up a great mélange of black cherries, petroleum jelly, cigar smoke, leather, a touch of chipotles, coffee and a very complex base of soil tones. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and powerfully built, with impeccable focus and balance, a rock solid core of fruit, still a bit of tannin to resolve, superb, tangy acids and simply stunning length and grip on the perfectly poised and refined finish. A wine of First Growth depth and dimension by any stretch of the imagination." John Gilman, View From the Cellar, May/Jun 2011, Issue #33 |