2011 Estate Cuvee State Lane Vineyard Yountville

Perfectionist Lou Kapcsandy and his talented winemaker Denis Malbec may be making the most extraordinary wines in California today, and the highly competitive Kapcsandy asks me every year when I'll finally award a 100-point rating to a just-released wine.One of his could yet be the first.The 2011s here are at the pinnacle of this tricky vintage and the 2012s may be his best set of wines to date.The Kapcsandy wines prove that it's possible to make hugely rich, thoroughly ripe Napa Valley wines at manageable levels of alcohol, although his site, which benefits from cooling breezes in the afternoon and a north-south direction to the vine rows that protects the fruit against the hottest sun of the day, is easily as important as his viticultural practices, picking strategies and winemaking.Kapcsandy's knockout reds (and roses) have a new littermate in recent years:a remarkably successful dry furmint, the great white grape of Tokaj in Kapcsandy's native Hungary.

I had another Petrus moment at Kapcsandy this year: the winery's stunning 2010 Roberta's Reserve is about as good as merlot gets, including on the Pomerol plateau.(And it's clear that Lou Kapcsandy is gunning for Petrus.)The wine has structure of steel plus uncanny depth and complexity, and may well have an aging curve like a great Pomerol from a great vintage.The estate was extremely severe with its selection in 2010, as fully two-thirds of its total production went into its entry-level Endre blend.Kapcsandy told me that the 2011 growing season brought a trifecta of lower alcohol, ripe fruit and buoyant acidity."The raw materials were a bit riper and fruitier, and the berries were slightly larger, with bigger seeds and slightly thinner skins," said Louis Jr."We had to let the cabernet sauvignon hang, and we ended up making more passes through the vines than they do at Chateau Yquem."