Made from 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Vogt Vineyard comes from a 15-acre parcel high on Howell Mountain. In addition to its opaque blue/purple color, it exhibits tons of minerality, medium to full body, impressive depth, and abundant blue and black fruit characteristics intermixed with notes of flowers and crushed rocks. The wine is frightfully tannic, but there is enough concentration to balance it out. Forget it for 5-6 years and drink it over the following 25 years. All four of these single vineyard offerings from Nickel and Nickel are in need of 4-6 years of bottle age, and appear to be long distance runners.Tel. (707) 967-9600

This densely structured wine is so dry and tannic the palate just puckers up into resistance. Buried deep down are massive and properly proportioned flavors of blackberries, black currants, dark unsweetened chocolate and smoky new oak. This intense 100% Cabernet should begin to blossom by 2012 and last for many years. ——S.H.(3/1/2010)—— 93