Pippa

9.3

Wow this is good. Super complex, lots of acidity but an earthy depth. — 16 days ago

Deborah M

9.2

Wonderful. Second to the Togni that was opened on the same night. Massive but feminine at the same time. In five years this will be amazing. — a year ago

Jason Gaffner

8.9

Nice texture and well made but there was his rubber tire thing going on in the nose I couldn’t get over.. would rather have two bottles of Togni 🤷🏻‍♂️ — 4 years ago

Bill Bender

9.1

One of 2 birth year wines I brought to the graduation dinner of my business partner's daughter. As an aside, she was class valedictorian out of 600+ students so props to her. This is a structured, well balanced Cabernet. Cedar, cherry, grainy-chewy tannins. Very solid but it lacks the gravitas of wines higher up on the mountain--Togni, Pride and even Barnett. Oh yeah did I say the grad dinner was at Olive Garden? My maiden voyage. Not as bad as I had envisioned and I know my partner only spent about $600 for 19 people so there's that..... — 5 years ago

Eric

9.5

Moody grundle factory. Still really young but boy what a wine. — 2 months ago

Ben Norman

9.1

Good buy again — 3 years ago

Mark Flesher

9.4

A definite 94 tonight, with some stiff competition but still held itself well and was several people's WOTN. This wine is a darker expression of cab at this point. Lots of blackberry cassis, blueberry, and truffle in the entry and middle. The wine seemed to almost get a little more youthful in the middle and finish, and I was very glad that it was enjoyed tonight along with a 99 Rudd, a 98 Phelps Bacchus, and a 95 Togni. This wine will continue to benefit from some additional time in the bottle. Very happy that I opened this one tonight for the group. Compared to the Levante, this Ponente seemed to express itself much earlier without as much of a decant. — 4 years ago

with Shay

Raun Kupiec

9.0

Definitely get blackberry and cigar box. Very fine tannins. But hard to properly taste due to food and other wines earlier. — 8 months ago

Ira Schwartz

9.5

A lesson in one’s wine evolution. Pahlmeyer was one of the first mailing lists I joined . This was the first case purchase of my life. Told to wait 2-3 years before drinking, I did exactly
that. I opened a few bottles over the years and really disliked it. Probably around 2005 a friend asked if I had some wine to donate to charity. Of course I said here is 5 bottles of Pahlmeyer merlot.
That left 3 bottles that I stashed in storage . Fast forward to 2010 and I opened a bottle for a friend who owned a wine store . The two of us looked at each other like deer in the headlights, we were dumbfounded by how good this was. I drank my remaining bottles and have not had this wine since 2016. Thanks to a generous friend who recently said go to the cellar and you pick out wine for dinner. For my palate along with ‘91 Dominus, ‘91 Seavey ‘91 Togni and ‘95 Insignia the best California wines from the ‘90’s. By the way the lack of tasting experience also had me pooh poo ‘91 Dominus.
On the nose a little bit of funk that quickly blew off. Red fruit and plums on the nose give way to a palate of complex and long lasting fruit surrounded by earth and tannins. The wine’s structure leads me to believe that well stored bottles can bring pleasure over the years to come. I would love to taste this out of magnum. — 2 years ago

Matthew Beckman

9.2

1975 Chappellet Merlot made by Joe Cafaro (their winemaker after Togni and before Corison) The reason I drink and secure aged wines. The group's WOTN...my #2. Developed gravely with air and continued to change throughout dinner. — 5 years ago