Rick Phillips

9.6

Like most of Philip Tongi wines, this 20 year old is just hitting it’s stride. The nose has lush bold fruits, dark plums, blackberry with a hint of licorice. Some old leather, faint earthy tobacco. Decanted for two hours found a refined texture. Smooth with some sediment, lushness is highlighted by the boldness of the flavors. The finish lingers…
— 10 days ago

with Letha

AEL

9.0

Tight, structured, took over an hour to really open up. Crushed raspberries, balsamic. — 8 months ago

Deborah M

9.6

Friday night catch-up. Friends brought this beautiful wine back from their recent Napa travels. 80% Cab Sauv 10% Cab Franc 10% Merlot. 13.75% ABV. 100% goodness. Interesting to compare this one to the 2011 Phillip Togni that I opened that night. — 3 years ago

Ira Schwartz

9.5

A lesson in one’s wine evolution. Pahlmeyer was one of the first mailing lists I joined . This was the first case purchase of my life. Told to wait 2-3 years before drinking, I did exactly
that. I opened a few bottles over the years and really disliked it. Probably around 2005 a friend asked if I had some wine to donate to charity. Of course I said here is 5 bottles of Pahlmeyer merlot.
That left 3 bottles that I stashed in storage . Fast forward to 2010 and I opened a bottle for a friend who owned a wine store . The two of us looked at each other like deer in the headlights, we were dumbfounded by how good this was. I drank my remaining bottles and have not had this wine since 2016. Thanks to a generous friend who recently said go to the cellar and you pick out wine for dinner. For my palate along with ‘91 Dominus, ‘91 Seavey ‘91 Togni and ‘95 Insignia the best California wines from the ‘90’s. By the way the lack of tasting experience also had me pooh poo ‘91 Dominus.
On the nose a little bit of funk that quickly blew off. Red fruit and plums on the nose give way to a palate of complex and long lasting fruit surrounded by earth and tannins. The wine’s structure leads me to believe that well stored bottles can bring pleasure over the years to come. I would love to taste this out of magnum. — 6 years ago

Mark Flesher

9.4

A definite 94 tonight, with some stiff competition but still held itself well and was several people's WOTN. This wine is a darker expression of cab at this point. Lots of blackberry cassis, blueberry, and truffle in the entry and middle. The wine seemed to almost get a little more youthful in the middle and finish, and I was very glad that it was enjoyed tonight along with a 99 Rudd, a 98 Phelps Bacchus, and a 95 Togni. This wine will continue to benefit from some additional time in the bottle. Very happy that I opened this one tonight for the group. Compared to the Levante, this Ponente seemed to express itself much earlier without as much of a decant. — 9 years ago

with Shay

Bill Bender

9.1

My favorite of the non Togni older CA cabs. I've had a lot of back vintages of Backus at the Phelps Insignia days. This falls in line with the standard style even in a less stellar vintage. Leather, tobacco, bell pepper, menthol. Great aged Cab.

A Delectable milestone. Wine number 1250. ✌🏽🍷 — 9 years ago

Jeroen Koenen

9.5

I love these new world wines with an old world soul. Togni, Ridge, Dunn and Dominus are my favorites in that particular California x Bordeaux league. Ric Forman’s wines are often unjustly overlooked; by myself, and many others. For these wines are singular, ageworthy, highborn and relatively affordable.
The 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon is quite smooth and approachable today, like great Napas present themselves most of the time. It contains masses of dark fruit, chalk, coffee, licorice and tobaccoleaf. Yet, underneath there’s a lot of great freshness, masculine structure and rusticity that could easily make me go Pauillac as well.
Really outstanding. Highly recommended. — 2 months ago

JKT

9.1

A new one for me. Very prominent straw stone fruits floral notes into a lively minerals saturated palate and finish. Great with the smoked salmon from Fung and miscellaneous leftovers. — 10 months ago

Daniel P. Drake

9.0

This is my first experience with this grape and this wine. I was given this wine by a close friend, the 1994 Ca' Togni Sweet Red Wine Philip Togni Vineyard Spring Mountain St. Helena, California. The grape is the Muskat Trollinger Muscat Hamburg.

On the nose there is licorice, leather, coffee and dark earth.

On the palate is licorice, buttery nutty carmel, concentrated dried dark fruits and butterscotch.

This wine is medium to full bodied and has port feel and qualities, sweet very viscous medium acidity and tannins seem to be fully resolved that moves deliciously into a long sweet savory nutty finish. Continued great weekend to everyone, stay safe and healthy. Nostrovia! 🍷🍷🍷🍷 — 4 years ago

Mark Flesher

9.3

And then there were two. So good. Nice serving with an aperitif before the big guy came and stole the show. Nice PN Rose. My previous score is 93, and completely every bit of that today....REALLY hard not rating this one a little bit higher. This wine was my backyard grilling companion. Very worthy aperitif to the Togni. — 8 years ago

Matt Berkovitch

Sommelier Babbo

9.1

"The Troublemaker", so tart, so good. — 9 years ago

Bill Bender

9.1

One of 2 birth year wines I brought to the graduation dinner of my business partner's daughter. As an aside, she was class valedictorian out of 600+ students so props to her. This is a structured, well balanced Cabernet. Cedar, cherry, grainy-chewy tannins. Very solid but it lacks the gravitas of wines higher up on the mountain--Togni, Pride and even Barnett. Oh yeah did I say the grad dinner was at Olive Garden? My maiden voyage. Not as bad as I had envisioned and I know my partner only spent about $600 for 19 people so there's that..... — 9 years ago

KA

9.3

Rare Steakhouse Washington DC — 3 months ago

JKT

9.1

Still a nice surprise new wine as previous — a year ago

Jeroen Koenen

9.5

Just like the Togni I thought this was too young and tannic for the moment.
Others scored this a lot higher. — a year ago

Deborah M

9.2

Wonderful. Second to the Togni that was opened on the same night. Massive but feminine at the same time. In five years this will be amazing. — 5 years ago

Ben Norman

9.1

Good buy again — 7 years ago

Jason Gallo-Gaffner

8.9

Nice texture and well made but there was his rubber tire thing going on in the nose I couldn’t get over.. would rather have two bottles of Togni 🤷🏻‍♂️ — 8 years ago

Henrik Poulsen

9.3

15.4% alc.

Coming after an '11 Togni CS this naturally felt a little "clumsy".
However in its own right this is a great wine.
— 9 years ago

with Kurt-Inge

Matthew Beckman

9.2

1975 Chappellet Merlot made by Joe Cafaro (their winemaker after Togni and before Corison) The reason I drink and secure aged wines. The group's WOTN...my #2. Developed gravely with air and continued to change throughout dinner. — 9 years ago