Arrow Branch, Beckstoffer Dr Crane Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley

Always love tasting the interesting concoctions from Premiere Napa Valley auction. This one was particularly well balanced with the smooth and sometimes slutty fruit from the doctor being balanced by the tannin and acid from Oakville ranch. A great blend they make here. Opened up quite nicely throughout the dinner as well.

2014 vintage

PHILLY CT GATHERING - DR CRANE This was a terrific bottle of wine, and likely tied for WOTN, in my humble opinion. A blend of cabs from both Dr Crane and Oakville Ranch. Nice mix of black and red fruits, terrific texture and mouthfeel capped by an amazing finish of cedar, scorched earth, and tobacco.

2014 vintage

Philly CT Wine Meetup - Dr. Crane Echo Frankenberry's notes here. Excellent structure and balance. Almost transitioning to secondary phase but the fruit still shines. There was not much left of this at the end of the night!

2014 vintage

Arrow & Branch winemaker dinner at Murphy's (Atlanta, GA) : A&B winemaker dinner @ Murphy's in Atlanta. From Magnum. PNP. Paired with grilled wagyu shortrib and served alongside the '19 A&B VHR. Blue fruit. EXCELLENT pairing and WOTN for me. I picked up several for the cellar. It was interesting that almost everyone else at the dinner felt that the VHR was the WOTN and some indicated they detected smoke taint in the Dr. Crane. I didn't detect even a …

2017 vintage

Great night of drinking with a 2016 Checkerboard Aurora, 2017 Arrow & Branch Dr. Crane, and a 2012 Opus One. This was the last wine of the night and we drank this at dinner with the steaks. I was shocked by the intensity of this wine. I have not drank another 2017 wine with this kind of sheer power. I passed on all my allocations of the 2017 vintage but have drank quite a few 2017's at my favorite wine …

2017 vintage

45 min double decant and drank over 2 hr with Mrs Geaux Tigers. Young and needed more air and more time sideways. Racy. Juicy. Tannic. Delicious. Hides the 15+ AC well. Black cherry, white flowers, dirty earthy mineral streak carrying everything along. I liked it, I’ll like it a lot more in 4 years. Hold til 2027.

2017 vintage

👍

2017 vintage

This seems to be right in its drinking window. Lovely floral aromas on the nose, complimented by cedar, cassis and loamy soil. Medium to full bodied, there's still a lot of decadent rich fruit, but the transition to secondary and tertiary notes of tobacco, mushroom and earth has begun. The tannins are soft and fine grained and there's much better overall structure and acidity than in the 2012 edition I had a few months back. Around the mid-palate a bitter …

2014 vintage

Lovely, I think Beckstoffer Dr. Crane grapes are the BEST

2014 vintage

Killer good, decanted for 2 hours and enjoyed with venison rib racks What a great combo

2014 vintage

Wine of the lineup, floral and very elegant, pure yet restrained. Well done. Complexity lines up with what I’ve come to expect from the 2017s though, not as much going on. Need to try another vintage.

2017 vintage

Love Beckstoffer but not the best

2014 vintage

Arrow and Branch Tasting 2016-2018 Vintages : Really a fabulous effort. Wonderful nose of blueberry pie, black cherries, violets, and tobacco, with earthy and mineral driven notes. Shockingly powerful and concentrated for the vintage, this has elegance and refinement in spades. Pure and fresh, without a hint of the green or bitterness this vintage can sometimes give off. Lots of tension and built for a long life.

2017 vintage

Not as good as I recalled from my previous notes

2014 vintage

Arrow and Branch (Brasswood, St. Helena) : A really fantastic 2014, carrying the layered and delicate nuances the top tier wines of the vintage are showing. In a really great place right now. Dark fruit, blackberry pie, touch of pepper. More aromatic than the 2012 and 2013. Long finish, touch of vanilla. Great great effort here.

2014 vintage

A Bunch of Young Napa Wines & Three Special Treats : This was one of the best wines of the night on par with the Rudd 2013. This is another 2014 Napa wine I really like and not the first one that drinks quite well today. While the 2013s are often still in shut-down mode, the 2014 are more open. In addition, you have a tad lower ripeness than in 2015 which I clearly prefer. This wine is no exception. …

2014 vintage

Much improved and developed from when I had this last year. Black cherry, black raspberry, cardamom, blackberry seed, and some dust. The initial attack cons you into thinking it is going to be thinner and lighter, with a black cherry water entry on the front end. But almost instantaneously, a heavier rush of black raspberry and dusty spices quickly elevates the center punch, and the complexity of flavors comes to full fruition once it reaches mid-palate, expanding beautifully and pushing …

2014 vintage

Coravin pour at home. This is definitely the only Dr Crane wine I've ever had where both the smell and the taste could be mistaken for a BDX wine. Similar to my previous note, and CSIMM captures this all well in his notes too, this is a very restrained version of this site. I know the proprietors are big fans of European wine, so this makes sense. The nose is black currant, blueberries, mint, eucalyptus, tobacco and mineral driven notes. …

2014 vintage

Second stop on our eighth day in Napa Valley is to Wheeler Farms where we tasted wines from Wheeler Farms, Tor Kenward, Arrow and Branch, and Vice Versa. Seventh wine is from Arrow & Branch and it is their Cabernet Sauvignon from the Beckstoffer Dr. Crane Vineyard. Which is made up of 100% Cabernet Sauvignon and aged in 72% new French oak barrels. Deep and dark ruby red. Well rounded nose coated in cinnamon, cocoa, purple flowers and dark berries. …

2014 vintage

Same as my previous notes. A bit more reserved this time (it was a PnP with little time to get air - 20 minutes tops), so the darker fruit wasn’t as ready at the helm as before. Time in bottle is indeed needed to help this stretch its legs. This is certainly a more finessed and deliberate version of Crane; not as wildly energetic or as immediately captivating as other versions from this site. Elegance, balance, and seamlessness are descriptors …

2014 vintage

3-Day Napa Cab Taste-Off: Vice Versa, B Cellars, Memento Mori, Alpha Omega, Purlieu, Janzen, Realm, Myriad, MACDONALD, Maybach, and more...; 2/7/2018-2/9/2018 (Napa) : This is starting to come around nicely, especially since I had it two years ago. Not as coiled up and standoff-ish as my previous encounter. Black and blue core fruit, blueberry, blackberry, black currant, black minerality, and some subtle cedar and spice. The blueberry interacted nicely with a violet note toward the middle of the attack, making …

2014 vintage

Whirlwind Winter Tasting in the Valley; 2/7/2018-2/10/2018 (Napa Valley, CA) : Very nice wine. Lots of blueberry pie on the nose, with spring flowers, crushed rock and a bit of tobacco. On the pallet this is nicely structured, with good fruit intensity and wonderful layering. It is a bit shy at the moment and you can tell these wines are made to last and avoid being forward or showy. One of the more age worthy 2014's I've had from this …

2014 vintage

750 Wine Tasting (Saint Helena) : Tasting event at 750 Wines in St. Helena with winemakers Russell Bevan, Aaron Pott, Benoit Touquette, Roy Piper, Helen Keplinger, Dan Petroski (Larkmead), Sam Kaplan (Memento Mori, Arkenstone, Nine Suns), Tom Garrett (Dakota Shy, Detert), Jennifer Williams (Arrow & Branch), and others. The 2014 Arrow & Branch Dr. Crane showed excellent promise, but was not nearly as accessible as the 2012 (not surprisingly). The 2014's youth was front and center, with coiled-up black and …

2014 vintage

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Arrow Branch, Beckstoffer Dr Crane Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley

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