2012 Matriarch

Two thousand thirteen is shaping up to be a fabulous vintage at BOND, where Bill Harlan offers five distinct essays on Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon as expressed in a collection of some of the best sites in the region. The 2012s are solid, but this is not a super-exciting vintage for Napa Valley, even at BOND. The biggest reason for that is that the personalities of the sites are not as marked as they usually are, something that is a characteristic of the vintage as a whole. As good as the wines are - and they are often fabulous - BOND is also the Harlan project that is at the greatest risk of getting lost in the shuffle. Harlan Estate is of course firmly entrenched as one of California's great wines. Promontory, another deeply site-specific wine, will soon make a case for inclusion among the valley's elite wines. But BOND, with its collection of five single-vineyard Cabernets, has a much less clearly defined identity. I am not sure why that is.

This is a superb set of wines from BOND. The 2011s are relatively delicate wines, while the 2012s are much more typical examples of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. I was quite surprised by the Pluribus, a wine that seems to have made a noticeable jump in quality over the last few vintages. Once a hard, somewhat compact Cabernet Sauvignon, Pluribus seems to have found a new level of finesse. The BOND portfolio is composed of five single-vineyard Cabernets meant to showcase some of Napa Valley's finest sites. In my view St. Eden, from the red soils of eastern Oakville, and Vecina, from Vine Hill Ranch are the most consistent performers, although as noted above, Pluribus has improved markedly.