Classic Napa Cab, right up there with the greats. Somehow manages to combine monstrous power with understated elegance. The strength is obviously in the ripe fruit and elaborate oak, while the subtlety lies in the soft tannins and impeccable balance. It’s a wine you return to over and over, trying to figure it out, but it’s always a step ahead. Drink now, with rich fare, or age through 2020.

Everything about this wine says "Wait ten years" if one wants aged perfection in a slightly riper wine. Of course, its wonderful sense of depth, its keen focus and its lovely supple yet firm presence on the palate may invite earlier drinking, and, in point of fact, there is never any requirement to wait for a wine to be reach its 25th birthday before opening it. But, we will certainly hold a couple of bottles because this wine should comfortably last that long. And, that perhaps, is the message of the Cask 23 bottlings in particular. One could get lured in by their refinement and miss the underlying potential to get even better over time.