97 Points Jeb Dunnuck
First made as a single vineyard in 2009, the 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Panek Vineyard reveals a deep purple hue as well as a crazy expressive nose of chocolate covered red and blue fruits, bouquet garni, tobacco, and scorched earth. Up-front, juicy, full-bodied, deep, and rich, with incredible tannins and a great finish, this up-front, sexy, balanced beauty will drink well for 10-15 years.
96 Points Wine Spectator
This offers a beautiful display of the vintage's telltale violet and mulberry notes, which infuse the well-endowed core of plum, cassis and blackberry puree fruit flavors, while its polished but substantial structure forms a broad pedestal. A lovely echo of cold cast iron lingers amid the fruit on the lengthy finish.
95 Points Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Panek is situated north of the town of St. Helena, near the Aida Vineyard. It's a relatively warm site, but the 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Panek Vineyard doesn't show any signs of over-ripeness, just gorgeous black cherries and cassis, plus hints of cedar. Full-bodied and creamy in the mouth, it's reasonably tannic on the finish but fully ripe and yet not overdone at all.
95 Points Decanter
A 100% Cabernet Sauvignon sourced from four small blocks in Panek Vineyard, a 2.2ha site in St. Helena north of Turley Winery and near Vineyard 29's Aida site. The soils are well-draining loam and gravel. In the glass, this wine offers a ripe, savoury, and opulent red with savoury notes of black liquorice, graphite, and a heady rush of black currants. Wonderfully plush and attractive on the palate, full-bodied and layered with black cherry and spiced plum fruits that provide a foundation for emerging blackberry and cassis notes. All that fruit is framed by a spine of juicy acidity, which layers in a welcome freshness factor.
95 Points Vinous
The 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Panek Vineyard is wonderfully silky and refined. Crushed flowers, raspberry jam, spice, mint and rose petal are all beautifully lifted. In 2021, the Panek is intensely aromatic and not quite as opulent as it can be, but that works to its advantage. This is a gorgeous wine in every way.
Winemaker Notes
Rivers-Marie's small five acre piece of this northern St Helena vineyard is really where their Cabernet program found its launching point. This old creek bed site features a wild spectrum of red, blue and black fruits veering from generously fruited in more giving years to brooding and deep in the small berry, drier vintages.
