Futo Proprietary Red Estate 2013

Reviews

98RP

"From the original Oakville estate, the 2013 Proprietary Red (which spends most of its time in T-5 Taransaud as well as Darnajou new oak) is a blend of 59% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Cabernet Franc and 6% Petit Verdot. It is a magnificent wine, tasting like a Pauillac from Oakville. The wine has notes of cedar wood, fruitcake, graphite, incense and charcoal embers interwoven with blackberry, cassis and unsmoked cigar tobacco. Full-bodied and multi-layered, with exceptional purity and depth, its great intensity and richness make this a prodigious effort that should drink well for 30 or more years. Kansas native Tom Futo is about as meticulous a wine producer as one can find. His Oakville estate, sitting between 215 and 500 feet in elevation, just below the Bond winery and Harlan vineyard, is composed mostly of sandstone and shale. It is broken up into six separate vineyard sites, with 25 vineyard blocks. His most recent acquisition is the 5500 Estate in the southeast corner of the Stags Leap District, which had once been a rock quarry. Along with his wines from these separate sectors, he also makes a blend of both vineyards which he calls the OV/SL, and more recently has been buying fruit from a vineyard in the Soda Canyon and Atlas Peak region with a terroir of white tufa and volcanic soils, from which he produces a wine called “he-li-an-thus,” so in essence there are four spectacular cuvées based around Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and some Petit Verdot. Mark Aubert was the first winemaker Futo employed, but when he left to start his own estate further north in Napa, he was replaced by the brilliant Jason Exposto, who has done an exceptional job. Viticultural work remains under the direction of the superstar of top vineyards, David Abreu. It is amazing when you consider how great the wines are that Futo wines really began when the original seven-acre Oakville property was purchased in 2002, followed by the completion of the winery in 2008 and the later purchase of the nine-acre Stags Leap vineyard. They haven’t yet been doing this for a decade, but Futo is already one of the superstars in a competitive and formidable lineup of top wineries in Napa Valley. His winemaking is classic in style, and all his wines are bottled unfined and unfiltered. This is an exciting place to visit .... If you haven’t discovered Futo, the wines are not inexpensive, but this is top producer in the Oakville and Stags Leap corridors."