2021 Purlieu Beckstoffer Missouri Hopper Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon

Decided to Coravin a glass of 2021 Purlieu Beckstoffer Missouri Hopper Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon. Purlieu is a small winery owned by winemaker/consultant Julien Fayard. It is not an estate and to my knowledge sources 100% of it's fruit. However, Fayard is well known in Napa and has produced numerous highly rated bottles for many of Napa's biggest wineries. As such, he is able to get access to vineyards that most cannot. In 2021, his prices increased a fair amount which was a big bummer and will probably affect me buying as much from this producer as I typically do moving forward.

So, how was this wine? It was a little shocking honestly. Julien Fayard is from France and is known for bringing French sensibility to Napa wine. In practice that means his wines are more nuanced and less big and hedonistic than a typical Napa Cab. However, this wine was the absolute prototype of a big, over-ripe, Napa Cab. It was pure hedonism and pleasure. On the nose it was deep, strong cassis aromas and a touch of raspberry and granite. On the palate it the fruit was so ripe and strong that it tasted very sweet. The dominant flavor was cassis and graphite with a touch of red fruit on the back palate. The texture was amazing and the tannins were wonderful. The tannins are very present but they are so fine you cannot perceive them until the very end and their effect really helps structure this fruit bomb of a wine. I'd give this wine 94 pts and I'm curious how it will age. Wines this rich sometimes integrate beautifully over several years and become exceptional. And, sometimes their constituent parts start to delineate too much and become disjointed. I think it'll be the former instead of the latter but time will tell. This is a wonderful, fun wine but I don't think it has good QPR for me. However, for budding palates who still crave a little residual sugar in their reds this wine would be revelatory as it's just such a good example of how 'sweet' you can get a wine from ripeness of fruit but still a super high quality, complex and beautiful wine in a classic Napa style.