100 Points | The Wine Advocate, Lisa Perrotti-Brown Deep garnet-purple, the 2016 Promontory comes barreling out of the glass with bold scents of black cherries, blueberry pie and licorice, leading to a slowly emerging core of crème de cassis, dark chocolate, black soil and truffles plus touches of cumin seed, mossy bark and beef drippings. The full-bodied palate is densely packed with muscular fruit, backed by a rock-solid structure of very firm, exquisitely ripe, grainy tannins and fantastic tension. The finish is both powerful and beautifully nuanced, hedonic and cerebrally gratifying. This singularly stunning expression of Napa Valley is to be released by the winery in 2021. During a visit to Promontory in December, I tasted the four latest vintages with winemaker David Cilli, Cory Empting and Will Harlan. The current release is the 2015 vintage, recently offered on the domestic market with the international offer coming out this spring. It was an absolute joy to taste the perfect 2016 Promontory again, a wine that Cilli mentioned "so clearly shows the characteristics of Promontory." Of the 2017 (now in bottle), Cilli said, “We were not able to pick the last few Promontory blocks because of the fires, so it was a very small harvest this year. We had picked a few lots just after the heat spells, and we were able to maintain that freshness in the wine." The 2018 vintage was tasted as a barrel sample, due to be bottled in early 2021. Cilli said, "We picked for six weeks at Promontory. I picked maybe 90 different lots!" Given the many, incredibly varied aspects, altitudes and soil types at this remote vineyard, this kind of parcel separation is critical to producing a wine of exceptional quality. This 2018 is truly a wine achievement to behold.
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