2012 Juslyn Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Estate Spring Mountain District Napa Valley 750 ml

A Dream Come True on Heart Attack Hill

In the spring of 1994, Craig MacLean got his first look at a steep slope at the base of Spring Mountain. MacLean was a student of the mountain, and the head winemaker at Spring Mountain Vineyard thought he knew its many faces about as well as anyone. But this was something else. Not only was the hillside packed with volcanic rock, but the beautifully exposed slope was a back-breaking 30 degrees!

Every week, MacLean made a detour at the end of his work day, if only to trek what some came to call “Heart Attack Hill.” MacLean imagined the Cabernet Sauvignon that might be drawn off the hillside, which could marry the chiseled tannins of Spring Mountain with the supple elegance of St. Helena. Still, MacLean had no delusions about the likelihood of his dream coming true. The cost of buying the parcel was prohibitive, much less planting it.

Two years later, Perry and Carolyn Butler did what no one had dared, what MacLean couldn’t imagine. The Butlers bought the property in 1996, and then brought in a vineyard team with spades and shovels. For weeks, the team jabbed sticks in the ground, carving saplings into rock and clay. After planting, Perry Butler took the next, best step: He called Craig MacLean.

Since the release of the 2004 vintage, Robert Parker has lavished high scores and praise on MacLean’s fabulously rich, ultra-sleek Cabernet Sauvignons, bottles that come out of the gate like racehorses, but continue to age gracefully for decades. In the sun-filled, exceedingly dry 2012 growing season, Juslyn’s deep-rooted Cabernet Sauvignon shrugged off the drought conditions, eking out just shy of 3 tons per acre of terrifically concentrated, small-berry Cabernet Sauvignon.

The stupendous 2012 Juslyn Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Estate is the greatest wine ever drawn of this impossibly rocky, backbreaking slope at the base of Spring Mountain Road. Opaque purple in color, infused with lush, polished aromas of blackberry and mountain blueberry jam, laced with new-wood cedar. MASSIVE on entry, dense and voluptuous, the core is filled with crushed-black-fruit preserves, tinged with tobacco, graphite, and Asian spices. Drink now — only if you MUST — for its youthful hedonism, or do as we’ve always done with great vintages of Juslyn Cabernet, and lay this blockbuster down until the late 2020s.