Continuum 2018 Proprietary Red HALF BOTTLE   

2018 Continuum Proprietary Red Wine Sage Mountain Vineyard Napa Valley

San Francisco Wine Panel Score: 100 Points

NVWE Notes: This is by any standard a glorious wine, at or near the pinnacle that Napa Cabernet can reach. Rated 98-100 in barrel by the Wine Advocate, in bottle it seemed an obvious 100 pointer to the San Francisco Wine Panel group. It is luxurious yet elegantly poised to the nose, where scents of blueberry, violet, blackberry, mulberry and Italian maraschino cherry seem to glide above a wave of Kalamata olive, oolong tea, baking-spice, coffee bean, toffee, graphite and hints of charcoal-like minerality. On the palate it is vibrant, gripping, wonderfully fruity, tongue-coating and shockingly supple despite all the drama, while the focus is precise and the balance pristine through an aristocratically classy finish. The fruity and sweet-savory flavors fan-out as a concentrated mirror of everything promised by the aromas, adding a sweet flash of star anise, mace and baking-spice at the end. Gorgeously seductive now, it should improve for at least five to eight years and likely well beyond.

Vinous
98 Points
The 2018 Proprietary Red Wine Sage Mountain Vineyard is another magnificent wine from the Mondavi family. Soaring and regal in its intensity, the 2018 possesses breathtaking aromatic presence and tons of the pedigree that have made wines off this site so compelling pretty much since the beginning. Vibrant dark fruit, lavender, sage, mint and mocha build into an impossibly long, silky finish. The 2018 is a flat-out stunner. Drink 2028 - 2043. Antonio Galloni Jan 2022