2021 Freemark Abbey Cabernet Sauvignon Bosche Napa Valley 6pk 6x750ml

Freemark Abbey has been making wine in Napa Valley since 1886, when Josephine Tychson built the original redwood cellar and became California's first female vintner. The winery competed in the legendary Judgment of Paris tasting with both a red and a white. Today it remains one of Napa's most venerated houses, known above all for the Bosche Vineyard Cabernet, one of California's earliest vineyard-designate wines and still among the winery's most coveted bottlings.

The 2021 Bosche is 94% Cabernet Sauvignon and 6% Merlot from the Rutherford vineyard, picked between August 30 and September 18 and aged 25 months in French oak, 65% new.

2021 was a drought year in Napa. The team was strict with water and canopy management, and the vines delivered small, intense berries on a normal ripening curve. That concentration shows in the glass.

Freemark describes blueberry, kirsch, graphite and forest floor on the nose, with black fruit compote, cedar, cigar box and mocha on a rich, supple palate and tannins that are already silky. Decanter and The Wine Independent both scored it 96, Wine Enthusiast gave it 95 and called it deftly made, and Wine Spectator gave it 93. Open it now or cellar it for the long haul.