Dalla Valle Maya Red 2014

Winemaker Notes The 2014 Maya, a blend of our finest Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, is dark, dense, muscular, and refined. While still distinctively focused, the wine is all about fruit intensity, with a rush of red fruit and exotic spice aromas rising from the glass—fresh bing cherry, dried currant, cardamom, fenugreek, cocoa and cinnamon. Mainly one is struck by the sheer purity of the wine, its seamless impression from start to finish. The tannins are highly structured but finely polished, and while there is plenty of girth and scaffolding to help the wine age for a very long time, the length is very impressive, carrying the shiny velvet sensation on for quite a while. This vintage of Maya will easily age for two decades or more. Critical Acclaim Robert Parker's Wine Advocate It is excellent, but not one of the great efforts from this iconic winery situated on the eastern Vaca hillsides above the Oakville corridor. That said, the 2014 Maya Proprietary Red may not be as perfect as the 2013 was, but it is a fabulous effort. Finishing at 14.6% alcohol, this wine (generally a blend of about 60% Cabernet Franc and the rest Cabernet Sauvignon) has incredibly gorgeous aromatics of black and blue fruits, forest floor, violets, and an almost Graves-like, scorched earth, gravelly nuance. The wine hits the palate with a full-bodied richness and terrific harmony among its structural elements such as alcohol, acidity, tannin and wood, with moderately sweet tannins in the finish. It is a good 30- to 35-year wine, as most Mayas have tended to be, and is impressive and surprisingly structured for a 2014. Forget it for 3-4 years and drink it over the following 35-40 years.