Promontory (Harlan) Penultimate 2016 Proprietary Red

WA 100 (1/2021): Deep garnet-purple, the 2016 Promontory comes barreling out of the glass with bold scents of black cherries, blueberry pie and licorice, leading to a slowly emerging core of crème de cassis, dark chocolate, black soil and truffles plus touches of cumin seed, mossy bark and beef drippings. The full-bodied palate is densely packed with muscular fruit, backed by a rock-solid structure of very firm, exquisitely ripe, grainy tannins and fantastic tension. The finish is both powerful and beautifully nuanced, hedonic and cerebrally gratifying. This singularly stunning expression of Napa Valley is to be released by the winery in 2021.
 
JD 100 (1/2021): The 2016 Estate is pure perfection and a legend in the making. Featuring incredible purity of fruit as well as powerful notes of crème de cassis, gravelly earth, cedar pencil, and chocolate, it has the fresher, pure, classic style of this great vintage front and center. With full-bodied richness and depth, it has an almost Château Latour-like stature and majestic quality, and it should have a similar evolution, requiring 7-8 years to hit its early drink window yet evolve for 20-30 years or more.
 

Vinous
94 Points
The 2016 Penultimate is fascinating to taste next to its sibling, as it has all of the qualities of this great vintage - namely complexity, dimension and stature - just with less intensity. Bright saline notes give the 2016 its nervy personality, but there is plenty of finesse too. Lavender, sage, gravel and spice play off a core of dark fruit in this stylish Cabernet Sauvignon from the Promontory estate. Drink 2024 - 2036. Antonio Galloni Jan 2022

Promontory is a high profile Napa Valley wine label consisting of a single red wine from Cabernet Sauvignon vines growing on Oakville's southwestern ridge. It is one of the highest priced wines made in California.

The 840 acre (340 hectare) property, isolated from other vineyards in the region, was purchased by the Harlan family in 2008. H. William Harlan had discovered it in the early 1980s while hiking the ridge but had been unable to acquire it. The fruit had previously been sold to other wineries. There are now around 80 acres of vines split across numerous plots.

Though only one Cabernet Sauvignon wine is made, it is a complicated blend. Because of the variations of soil, exposure and elevation, up to 70 different passes are made through the vineyard to pick fruit in optimum condition. This results in 30 or more distinct component wines being made and aged in barrel for a year before blending.
The blended wine is then further aged for several years. Unusually for the USA, Promontory use large casks from Austrian oak.