The 1996 Cabernet Sauvignon Chabot Vineyard offers aromas and flavors of chocolate liqueur infused with brandy as well as loamy soil intermixed with damp forest, underbrush scents. Full-bodied, with massive power, and chewy, thick, structured, chocolatey fruit flavors, this is a complex yet backward, formidably-endowed Cabernet Sauvignon with palate staining levels of extract and tannin. Give it 3-4 years of bottle age, and consume it over the following two decades. Undoubtedly the Chabot Vineyard is Beringer's best known single vineyard Cabernet. Like the other single vineyard offerings, this is a 100% Cabernet Sauvignon aged in 100% new oak casks. The single-vineyard Cabernet Sauvignons are part of what Beringer calls their "Vineyard Collection." Produced in 200 case lots, readers expecting to find them sitting on a shelf in their local retail shops will be disappointed, as they are destined to be sold via Beringer's mailing list, or directly from the winery. Because of the limited quantities available, my notes on these wines are intentionally abbreviated. Release date, 4/01. Tel. (707) 963-7115; Fax (707) 963-1735