Moone Tsai - 2019 - Black List XXXI Cabernet Sauvingon - 750 ml.

Deep ruby on the verge of opacity, this 31st edition of our Black List collection is a study in serious Bordeaux-style red blends. Resplendent with its backbone of 96% Cabernet Sauvignon hailing from a notable troika of blocks located on Pritchard Hill, Stags Leap, and Coombsville, the wine is serious and mercurial; just enough to lead Cab-hounds into wonder. Dense, and direct with dark fruit, the wine’s attack and mid-palate offer ample helpings of black plum, berries and morello cherries, with nods to sweet baking spices, oak and graphite. Fermented in stainless steel tanks (3-days cold soak, 23 days on skins), the wine’s structure is finely marked by silky, supple tannins, nice weightiness, and exceptional balance. Serious, complex, intense, and a touch mysterious (cue Palisades Petite Sirah), one can’t help but think of the remarkable Irish actor, Cillian Murphy, whose brilliant portrayal of America’s modern-day Prometheus in Oppenheimer, is leaving the critics (and all of us!) speechless.