2013 Cabernet Sauvignon Gravel Series Scholar's Gate

Round Pond has really come on in the last few years and established themselves as a producer of serious Napa Valley Cabernets. For years, Round Pond has sold fruit to a number of wineries, while the focus and ambition to make first-rate estate wines is more recent. Perhaps because of that, some things are still in evolution. Round Pond makes a number of wines that draw from various parts of the property plus two single block Cabernets from the Rutherford estate and a third single-vineyard wine from their M-Bar Ranch in Oakville that together form the Gravel Series wines. In my view, the simpler wines at Round Pond are the best of the bunch. My distinct impression of the three flagship wines is that they spend too much time in oak and are being made in a style that is overly forced and concentrated for what these sites seem to want to produce more naturally. In fact, multiple tastings of those wines strongly suggest the wines lose personality rather than gain complexity over their relatively long aging times in oak. Those three wines could and should be world class. Today, they fall a bit short of that level. Consumers are better off focusing on the Estate and Reserve bottlings, both of which deliver superb quality for the money.

Round Pond continues to impress. These are four gorgeous Cabernets. The Estate is one of the very best values readers will find in top-flight Cabernet, while the newer single-vineyard/block wines dazzle. Winemaker Muiris Griffin crafts these Cabernets in a contemporary classic style that is super appealing. Thomas Rivers Brown is the consultant, but this is the only project Brown works with as a true outside consultant rather than as a winemaker. Above all else, this Rutherford site sits on prized dirt, and that is exactly what comes through in the Round Pond wines. In a word: pedigree. Round Pond remains one of real undiscovered jewels of Napa Valley