It’s been a while since we last tried anything from Cornerstone Cellars. I had to look back over the last two and a half years of our reports to find our last encounter with this excellent Napa Valley producer. We hadn’t heard anything from them until just a few months ago, when we got an inquiry as to whether we’d like to try some of their new releases, and, of course, we’ve never been known to turn down offers like this.

The four wines came in packages of two, a few weeks apart. We gave them plenty of time to rest, and tasted them in the order that they arrived. (Click on images to enlarge.)

2014 Cornerstone Cellars Napa Cabernet Sauvignon Benchlands, 14.9 % Alc., $65.00: Deep and dark in color, and all lush fruit and chocolate on the nose. Creamy in texture at first, but some serious structure makes itself known in short order. Very intense and primary, and very much in the house style that we remember from previous encounters with Cornerstone Cabs, with black currant, cassis and chocolate. Ideally, I’d like to try this again in about 10 years. Still, it finally does start to open after about three hours, so give this some time in a decanter if you have to open one now. Find this wine

2014 Cornerstone Cellars Napa Cabernet Sauvignon Calistoga, 14.5% Alc., $75.00: Deep and dark in color, fairly faint on the nose and not quite as backward as the Benchlands. Deep, dark black currant and berry flavors, with a chocolatey note similar to the Benchlands, and some earth underneath it all. Full bodied, and not quite as big as the wine above, but well-structured for aging and evolving over the next ten years and beyond. It also opens with some extended air, so you know the drill if you want to open one now; decant, decant, decant. Find this wine

I like both of these wines, the Benchlands perhaps the better of the two; despite my reservations about opening either of them anytime soon, they do work well enough with some grilled, medium rare steak. They need lots of time to tone down those tannins and acids, but both have to goods to go the distance.

We opened the second two a few weeks later, starting with the Sauvignon.

2016 Cornerstone Cellars Napa Sauvignon Blanc, 14.1% Alc., $30.00: Clean medium straw, morphing into pale gold; the intense aromatics tell you right away that this ain’t no Kiwi Sauvignon, and the flavors confirm that impression. It might actually compare more favorably to a Didier Dagueneau Pouilly Fume from the good ol’ days than a grapefruit-gooseberry number from New Zealand, but it’s really most reminiscent of previous Cornerstone models that we’ve enjoyed and some of those nice old Mondavi Fume Blancs. This one is more in the green melon, apple and grape spectrum, with the barest hint of oak influence from some neutral barrels and even some mineral lurking here and there. Medium-full bodied, with good acids and length; the fruit has excellent intensity, and it’s not fruit bomb ripe. A very good seafood white, and maybe even better with grilled smoked chicken. Find this wine

2014 Cornerstone Cellars Napa Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain, 14.6% Alc., $100.00: Deep, dark color, with a pretty perfume of ripe (but not too ripe) black currant and blackberry, graced with well-integrated sweet oak. The flavors largely echo the aromatics, with a good dose of earth and significant structure; some subtle toast, smoke and cocoa emerge as it opens. It would have been interesting and instructive to try this with the other two cabs, but we had already tried those when we received this, but my gut feeling is that this would be my favorite of the three. It’s a fine match for some thin-sliced medium rare flank steak on a bed of power greens with sliced beets and fried goat cheese, but it’s best to put this down for several years to mellow those tannins. Find this wine

These four are very much in the same “house style” that we remember from our previous experiences, which is a very good thing. They’re not inexpensive, especially the reds, but they’re very well-made and offer lots of pleasurable drinking, both now and/or several years down the road.

Reporting from Day-twah,
Bastardo

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Related posts:

1. 2009 Cornerstone Cellars Napa Sauvignon Blanc
2. A New Rosé from Stepping Stone by Cornerstone
3. Two Cornerstone Cellars Black Label Cabs
4. Two 2007 Cornerstone Cellars Cabernet Sauvignons
5. Two Late Model Cornerstone Reds