2012 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.