Composed of 96% Cabernet Sauvignon and 4% Petit Verdot, the 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve comes from 84% Sonoma County and 16% Napa County. Deep garnet-purple in color, it charges out of the glass with bold notes of crème de cassis, redcurrant jelly and Black Forest cake followed by nuances of red roses, cinnamon stick, unsmoked cigars and dusty soil with a touch of oolong tea. The medium to full-bodied palate is chock-full of mouth-coating red and black fruit preserves, supported by ripe, finely grained tannins and beautiful freshness, finishing long and perfumed. 

The 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve is ample and expressive right out of the bottle. Ripe red berry fruit, cedar, tobacco, licorice and blood orange all build in the glass as this mid-weight, juicy Cabernet shows off its considerable charms. Best of all, the 2017 Reserve will be ready to drink with just a few years in bottle, which is so rare for this wine. There is some graininess in the tannin. I expect that will always remain as a marker of this very challenging growing season.

The 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve does well in the vintage and has a beautiful elegance and purity that's already hard to resist. Lots of blackcurrants, spice, candied violets, tobacco, and a touch of chocolate give way to a medium to full-bodied, flawlessly balanced Cabernet delivering great tannins (which is not a given in this vintage), a great mid-palate, and the structure and overall class to evolve for 20 years or more. It's a beautiful 2017 well worth seeking out.

Surpassingly rich and marked by all kinds of sweetness, but wonderfully layered and complex without ever being at all candied and showing loads of juicy, currant-like fruit at its core and creamy oak in abundance, Pride’s 2017 Reserve Cabernet is so very showy right now that it is easy to overlook its exceptional, very ageworthy construction. Give it time, at least another half-dozen years to grow into its refined best, and bet big that it will be all the more fascinating yet once ten or twelve have passed.