Our Bordeaux Medoc blend of predominantly Cabernet Sauvignon with Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. This wine is sheer power in a silk glove.
Review
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Vinous (Apr. 2023)
Review by Antonio Galloni
Rating: (97)
VIEWHelen Turley turned out a brilliant 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon for proprietors Claude and Katherine Blankiet. The 2001 is a wine of its era, there is no doubt about it, and yet it shows just how compelling the best wines of this period remain in a word: brilliant.
“The 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon Paradise Hills Vineyard was one of the highlights of my tasting for this retrospective. Dark, plush, and inky to the core, the 2001 possesses tremendous explosive intensity. Blue/purplish fruit, iron, leather, cedar, spice, chocolate and heavy torrefaction abound. Helen Turley made the 2001, a blend of 90% Blocks 7 and 8 (planted in 1998) and 10% Block (planted in 1996). The wine very much reflects her style and the prevailing approach at many Napa Valley properties at the time. It’s a towering wine that is in a great place today.”
Antonio Galloni, April 2023
Tasting date: October 2021
Drinking window: 2021 – 2028 -
Stephen Tanzer's International Wine Cellar
Review by Stephen Tanzer
Rating: (93)
VIEWSaturated ruby. Highly nuanced aromas of crystallized berries, tobacco, minerals, and bitter chocolate, mocha and roasted herbs. Very cool and classy but backward cabernet, with subtly complex flavors of cassis, mocha, game and fresh herbs. Less flamboyantly ripe and sweet than the 2002, but distinctly claret-like in its finesse. Very firmly tannic today and perhaps beginning to shut down. A sophisticated cabernet that should enjoy at least 12 to 15 years of development in bottle. Both this and the 2002 version are 100% cabernet sauvignon. Although winemaker Helen Turley has a couple of new projects in the works, the Blankiet wines are currently her only set of wines in the market made from Bordeaux varieties.
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Wine Advocate # 195 (June 2011)
Review by Robert Parker
Rating: (95)
VIEWThis is a great effort from Blankiet that has turned out beautifully, with a silky personality, voluptuous texture, beautiful nose of roasted herbs, burning embers, smoked meat, spring flowers, and plenty of blackberry and cassis. Almost La Mission Haut-Brion-ish in its character thanks to the minerality and smokiness, the wine is full-bodied, rich, concentrated, and has shed its once-considerable tannins, which are relatively rapid-paced. That said, as drinkable and complex as it is already, this wine still has another 20 years left in it.
