Beaulieu Vineyards BV Tapestry Reserve Napa Valley Red Wine

Beaulieu Vineyards BV Tapestry Reserve Napa Valley Red Wine

We hold nearly two decades of this label dating back to the mid-1990's.  The basic Bordeaux Blend of the extensive BV portfolio, it represents pretty good QPR for a sophisticated Napa Valley based Bordeaux Blend. 

Our Cellartracker records indicate we acquired several bottles of this label upon its release and distribution back in 2014.  That said, never-the-less, our previous tasting of this wine was at the Trattoria Fiamma Restaurant at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas back in 2016. 

For that client dinner in Las Vegas at Trattoria Fiamma which specializes in sophisticated traditional Italian cuisine,  our diners selected beef and other wine friendly dishes so I selected from the winelist I selected an obligatory Italian, a Massolino Barolo, and then this well known popular Napa red from the award winning winelist.

The Las Vegas dining experience offers sensational  surroundings of architecture and design of the mega casino resort hotel, the dining rooms and their eye-popping showcase wine cellars.  

Our business focused non-wine enthusiast crowd called for a modicum of reasonableness in moderate wine selections. Hence, I chose some carefully selected, moderate priced well known predictably pleasant, easy drinking reds that would appeal to the group. The extensive wine-lists offer choices in all price ranges and styles and highlighted this as a key American selection at a reasonable price-point for sophisticated dining.

Tonight, Linda and Sister Pat opened this with Greek Salad dinner. We men went to the last day of the season MLB (baseball) game, and joined them later and enjoyed the remains of this wine with the salad and leftover grilled beefsteak from the previous evening. 

I had pulled this wine from the cellar and set it aside for this evening since it was old enough to be mature and at its prime, yet young enough to be fruit filled and enjoyable and easy pleasurable drinking for the ladies. It proved to be just that - and a perfect pairing with the remaining grilled beefsteak!

Beaulieu Vineyards BV Tapestry Reserve Napa Valley Red Wine 2011

This label was introduced with the 1990 vintage was developed as a tribute to BV's French heritage and the classic Bordeaux blends that are world-renowned. The label is sourced from a selection of specific vineyard blocks of top-quality grapes that give Tapestry the combined attributes of terroir expression and a round, approachable tannin structure. 

This release was a blend of Bordeaux varietals - 79% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7% Cabernet Franc, 6% Merlot, 5% Malbec, and 3% Petit Verdot.

Winemaker Vineyard notes: "We chose specific blocks of top-quality grapes that give Tapestry the combined attributes of terroir expression and a round, approachable tannin structure. Roughly half of the Cabernet Sauvignon was grown on the famous western benchland of the Rutherford American Viticultural Area (AVA) and the balance from the Calistoga, Oakville, and Coombsville AVAs. The Merlot comes from our vineyards in the warmer parts of Carneros and the Rutherford Bench, while the Petit Verdot and Malbec are sourced exclusively from our estate vineyards in Rutherford. The Cabernet Franc is grown on Howell Mountain where berries are small, concentrated and extremely expressive."

"The low-yields of an exceptional cool vintage gave our 2011 Reserve Tapestry its refined elegance, while five Bordeaux-heritage varietals contributed layer-upon-layer of flavor complexity. This is a wine that shows the artistry of the winemaker. Winemaker Jeffrey chose Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc for the wine's core of briary blackberry and cassis expression and its firm tannin structure. He then added Merlot for plush mid-palate texture and a hint of cherry. Petit Verdot and Malbec complete the blend with nuances of ripe plum, rose, forest loam and graphite." 

This wine shows well for a vintage that was challenging for winemakers and was generally panned by the pundits. Interesting that very often the blockbuster vintages don't meet the lofty accolades and expectations, while the 'lesser' vintages often exceed such. I am finding the 2011's to offer very pleasant easy drinking these days, at great value due to their suppressed prices due to the lackluster ratings for the vintage. 

At twelve years, the fill level, foil, label and cork were ideal and this was most likely at the apex but end of its prime drinking window and likely to start to diminish from this point forward.

Tonight's tasting was consistent with that earlier one that I posted in these pages in a tasting report on that Las Vegas dinner and wine and food pairing when I wrote:

"Dark garnet colored, medium bodied, tight, structured black berry core with tones of cassis, graphite and clove spice and a hint of cedar and creosote on a moderate smooth tannin laced finish."

RM 89 points. 

https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=1843548

https://www.bvwines.com/ 

http://unwindwine.blogspot.com/2016/03/wine-and-dine-at-trattoria-fiamma-mgm.html