100 Points, Jeb Dunnuck: Absolute pure perfection and wine, the 2021 Cabernet Savignon Materium comes from the Weitz vineyard in Oakville and is all varietal raised and mostly New barrels. It’s deep, saturated, Purple hue is followed by a kaleidoscope – like array of black and blue fruits, chocolate, gravelly earth, and tobacco, and it picks up an undeniable sense of minerality with time in the glass. Full bodied and incredibly concentrated, with a stacked-palate and building yet perfect tannins, this magical effort, blends, power, and elegance flawlessly. It needs at least 4 to 5 years in the cellar, but this is a heavenly Napa Valley Cabernet Savignon I wish every reader could taste. It should blow your socks off for at least two decades. 

TASTING NOTES

All good things come in time, and this vintage allowed for extended hang time in our ridgetop block in the eastern Oakville hills. This site excels when the mature vines are allowed to develop uninhibited by weather interference. This doesn’t occur every year, but when it does, it’s hard to imagine another site that consistently produces such focused wines that express power, complexity and elegance like the Materium wines.

This vintage is deep and dark: the color, the aromas, and the fruit density all come together with an elongated palate experience and deep flavors. This is a wine where the aromatic expression can be noted from an arm’s length away. The robust palate is marked by an exotic mix of dark fruit, baking spice and loamy notes, giving way to a lengthy, ethereal finish. If you’ve been a collector of this wine for years, this is one vintage that will serve as a cornerstone and reminder of what is possible from this world-class site.

— Thomas Brown, Winemaker