Vinous (94+)

Good deep ruby. Rich aromas of currant and graphite minerality. Lush, round and large-scaled, with strong rocky and mineral qualities adding interest to its very sexy flavors of black raspberry and spices. Dry, classic, powerful cabernet whose broad tannins are amazingly supple for Mount Veeder. Finishes subtle and extremely long. An excellent vintage for this bottling, which is from vines planted at 1,700 feet.

Wine Advocate (100)

The 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon Mt. Veeder is as compelling a Cabernet Sauvignon as one could ever hope to taste. This 100% Cabernet Sauvignon from a high-elevation site boasts an inky/purple color, and smells of ink, blueberry liqueur, blackberries, black raspberries, mulberries, licorice, charcoal and camphor. With magnificent fruit richness, a layered, full-bodied mouthfeel, and incredible length, this seamlessly constructed 2012 should provide immense pleasure for 25+ years. Kudos to winemaker Chris Carpenter as he is clearly at the top of his game.

Jeb Dunnuck (100)

The 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon Mount Veeder is beautifully complete, with a layered, multi-dimensional, elegant profile that's more structured than the Diamond Mountain, yet more seamless and approachable than the Howell Mountain. Crème de cassis, Asian spice, smoked earth, incense and sandalwood note all flow to full-bodied Cabernet Sauvignon that has no hard edges, ultra-fine tannin, incredible purity of fruit, and a great finish. As with all these 2014s, it's not about huge richness and opulence and more about purity, nuance and balance. It's a damn near perfect wine that will only get better with 2-4 years of bottle age and keep for three to four decades.

Wine Advocate (100)

Very deep inky purple colored, the 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon Mount Veeder is a little youthfully reticent at this stage, offering glimpses at freshly crushed black currants, black berries and plums with touches of dried Provence herbs, menthol, cigar boxes and Indian spices. Full-bodied with very firm, very ripe tannins and an incredible core of black fruit, earth and spice layers, it has wonderful freshness and depth, finishing long and multilayered. 618 cases produced.

Jeb Dunnuck (100)

Unfortunately, there won’t be a 2017 due to the fires, but the perfect 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Mt. Veeder should certain tide you over. This literally off-the-charts effort is a good as Cabernet Sauvignon gets, offering complex blueberry and blackberry fruits, violets, bay leaf, and forest floor aromas and flavors. It’s a big, structured mountain Cabernet, yet it has a seamless texture, incredible elegance paired with full-bodied power, building tannins, and a great, great finish. Hide bottles for 4-5 years and it will keep for 3+ decades. Good luck keeping your hands off it, though. Anticipated maturity: 2023-2051

James Suckling (100)

Blackberries, herbs, green pine needles, blackcurrants and lead pencil. Full-bodied with incredible structure and powerful tannins. It goes on for minutes. The structure is something else. Muscular, but the tannins give form and focus to the beautiful fruit. Mountain-grown Latour! Extraordinary. Try after 2026.

Vinous (97)

The 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon is a huge, dark wine. Virile, imposing and massively structured in the glass, the 2013 is a wine for readers who can be patient. The flavors are dark, bold and incisive, with potent tannins and a real feeling of gravitas to back things up. Black cherry, game, smoke, gravel and licorice add to an impression of brooding intensity. In many ways, the 2013 reminds me of some of the great wines of the 1970s in its dark, imposing personality.

Jeb Dunnuck (97)

My favorite in the lineup was the 2016 Cabernet Franc Mt. Veeder. This rock star effort has a Cheval Blanc-like level of complexity and purity. Possessing a huge perfume of black cherries, blackberries, violets, lavender, and savory herbs, it hits the palate with medium to full-bodied richness, incredible elegance, ultra-fine tannins, and a great, great finish. It’s not a blockbuster, yet it has world-class complexity, elegance, and purity. Drink it any time over the coming 10-15 years.

Wine Advocate (98)

The single-vineyard Sorte O Soro had not been produced since 2016, and the 2019 Sorte O Soro is the next vintage after that. This plot has always shown additional elegance, freshness and salinity since he started vinifying it in 2004, because of the altitude (710 meters above sea level) and the north exposure to the Bibei Valley, where the old clone is planted on fine granite sand and quartz soils. Like As Sortes, this Sorte also fermented and matured with lees in new 500-liter French oak barrels for eight months. It has 14% alcohol with a pH of 3.12 and higher acidity (at 7.5 grams) than the rest of the 2019s. It feels very harmonious, elegant and nuanced with some creaminess, with notes of wet pollen and yellow flowers. The palate reflects the soil, with vibrant granite and very fine sand and electric quartz (saline), and it's also round and powerful from the clone that is planted in the vineyard. This vineyard is in the process of being organically and biodynamically certified. 2,240 bottles were filled in September 2020. I tasted the 2019s and 2020s from Rafa Palacios in Valdeorras. For him, these are two very good years. 2019 had a mild and dry winter and a rainy and cold spring that delayed budding, followed by a mild summer with fewer hours of sunshine, which meant a delay in the ripening process. Harvest was more than one month later than usual, and the grapes achieved very slow ripening and full development of aromas and flavors while keeping the acidity. The harvest started in October and finished in November. It's a beautiful, homogeneous vintage with very good wines. 2020 saw a moderately cool and rainy winter and a dry and cold spring that resulted in 20% less bunches than in 2019. The summer was also quite dry but, fortunately, not too hot. Given the low yields, maturation was accelerated, and the harvest began at the beginning of September for Louro and from September 25th for As Sortes. Given the scarce water, the plants had to work harder deep down into the soil, which marked the wines; the silica and quartz from the sandy soils of O Bolo shaped a saline identity and the wines achieved a lot of elegance and balance. It's a more heterogeneous vintage, and the higher-altitude vineyards behaved better. The 2020 O Soro is out of this world. He gave me a quick preview of the very cold 2021, a vin de garde vintage but a challenging year with a lot of rain. They are in the process of certifying their vineyards (organic and biodynamic), but they have some problems in the vineyards with neighbors who are not organic, so it will probably be faster for O Soro and Sorte Antiga.

Decanter (98)

Sampled from a vat, this is one of the best As Sortes I have ever tasted, comparable to the iconic 2011. It's a prodigy of subtleness and elegance. Everything is firmly delicate in this wine. Restrained aromas open up parsimoniously, with a steely structure like a great Burgundy, but with flinty acidity almost like Grosses Gewächs from Rheingau. Despite the fact that the sample was not yet bottled, the wine had no oak influence, just the indication that it had been aged, as top Godello must. Rafael Palacios is refining his work year after year, reaching the magic of the greatest wines. A top wine, and one to keep.

Wine Advocate (95)

The 2015 O Diviso felt closed, more reticent, and seems more powerful, despite the fact they did a nonextractive vinification; they did nothing and let the wine ferment at its own pace. This matured in one 600-liter oak barrel, and this is the only red that has a slight note from the oak. There is also a relevant amount of Garnacha Tintorera, so the combination of a warm year, the small barrel and the varietal mix resulted in a more austere and backward wine that is going to require more time in bottle. The fruit is darker and the wine is more powerful than the 2014. It might evolve with time in bottle, because it certainly has the stuffing to do so, but today As Caborcas was singing, and I have to give it the edge. 895 bottles produced. It was bottled in May 2016.