Bryant Family Vineyard: Bryant Family Vineyard is located on Pritchard Hill, high above Lake Hennessy in the Napa Valley. With its first successful release in 1992, Bryant Family wines have scored a string of high ratings through the 1990's with the help of winemaker Helen Turley, including a perfect Robert Parker score in the 1997 vintage. The hillside vineyard estate produces exceptional cult Cabernet in limited volumes.   

Bryant Family Vineyard (1992 Debut to 1997 Perfect):

1992 Bryant Family - RP 92 - Over the next year readers should be on the lookout for some of the 1,000 case production of Don Bryant's Cabernet Sauvignon from an old vineyard on Pritchard Hill near the Chappellet Vineyard. Bryant's 1992 Cabernet Sauvignon offers an impressive black/purple color, rusty tannin, immense concentration, full body, and enormous richness in the finish.

1993 Bryant Family - RP 97 - There are just under 1000 cases of this extraordinary Cabernet Sauvignon produced from a vineyard on Pritchard Hill, a viticultural area most associated with one of Napa Valley's most conspicuous
underachievers, Chappellet. Production of Bryant's Cabernet Sauvignon will drop to just over 600 cases in 1995 as one-third of the vineyard was recently replanted.

Bryant's opaque black/purple-colored Cabernets are fermented with wild yeast and bottled without any clarification techniques such as filtration. They also receive a pre-fermentation five day cold maceration. This technique is used by consultant Helen Turley for all the Cabernet Sauvignons she makes. The 1993 Cabernet Sauvignon has turned out even better than I predicted last year (and I thought it was an amazing wine from barrel). It exhibits an opaque purple/black color, and a huge, fragrant, penetrating bouquet of minerals, licorice, toast, and remarkable layers of black fruits. Although extremely full-bodied, the wine's hugeness and massive concentration come across as beautifully poised, balanced, and delineated. The tannin is not as sweet as in the 1994, but it is ripe. The quantity of tannin should ensure this wine's graceful evolution for another 20-25 years, although it will be easy to drink within 2-3 years.

1994 Bryant Family - RP 98 - A potentially perfect wine, the 1994 Cabernet Sauvignon boasts a fabulous nose of cassis, cream, blueberries, violets, minerals, and spice. It smells like a hypothetical blend of a great vintage of L'Evangile, Clinet, and Mouton-Rothschild. The opaque purple/black color is followed by a full-bodied wine stacked and packed with fruit, glycerin, and extract. No component part is out of place in this formidably endowed, remarkably well-balanced wine. The purity, richness, sweetness and depth of fruit suggest that the wine's potential is limitless. Much like its cellarmate, the 1994 Colgin Cabernet Sauvignon (also made by Helen Turley), the Bryant Family Vineyard's 1994 should evolve into one of California's legendary Cabernets. It will age effortlessly for 25-30 years.

1995 Bryant Family - RP 99 - The 1995 Cabernet Sauvignon is cut from the same mold as the profound 1996, displaying astonishing levels of black fruits (the usual suspects - blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, and cassis), phenomenal concentration, and virtually perfect balance and equilibrium.

I recently wrote an article in Food and Wine magazine itemizing the characteristics of a great wine. They are: 1) the ability to please both the palate and the intellect, 2) the ability to hold the taster's interest, 3)
the ability to offer intense aromas and flavors without heaviness, 4) the ability to taste better with each sip, 5) the ability to improve with age, and 6) the ability to offer a singular personality. This wine satisfies
every one of those requirements.

I often wonder if I get too excited about wines such as this. Yet time is on their side. I truly believe that in 20, 40, or 60 years, when the history of what appears to be a golden age for California wines is analyzed, these wines, and the work of their winemaker, will be even more admired and appreciated by future generations than they are today.

1996 Bryant Family - RP 99 - The opaque purple-colored 1996 Cabernet Sauvignon offers a spectacular, exotic bouquet of Peking duck skins, blackberry and cassis liqueur, roasted herbs, and burning charcoal. It is phenomenally intense, with record levels of dry extract and glycerin. This hedonistic blockbuster is crammed with jammy fruits nicely buttressed and framed by adequate acidity and tannin. Drink this marvelous Cabernet Sauvignon now or cellar it for two decades. This is mind-boggling stuff!

The wine from this hillside vineyard near Napa's Pritchard Hill, has already become mythical (1992 was the debut vintage). This is a wine of world-class quality, and is certainly as complete and potentially complex as any first-growth Bordeaux. To date, it has been characterized by extraordinary richness, complexity, and harmony, as well as the potential to evolve and improve for 20 or more years.

1997 Bryant Family - RP 100 - The 1997 Cabernet Sauvignon displays an impressively saturated black/purple color, and fabulously fragrant aromatics consisting of licorice, toast (the French call it pain grille), asphalt, violets, blackberries, and cassis. Full-bodied, staggeringly concentrated, yet velvety-textured, with perfect integration of acidity, tannin, and alcohol, this is a prodigious Cabernet Sauvignon from Bryant. The 1997 is slightly more evolved than the 1996 and 1995 were at a similar stage, and appears to possess even more glycerin and length. Although the alcohol level reached 15%, there is not a trace of heat in the finish. This is an astonishing achievement. When I tasted this wine in September, it was one of the few times this year (while tasting professionally) that I swallowed instead of spit.