We're sorry. This product is currently out of stock. Please check back later.

ZD Cabernet Reserve Sauvignon - $129.99

Wine Details

Price: $129.99
Producer: ZD Winery
Region: Napa Valley
Varietal: Cabernet Sauvignon
Container Size: 750 ML
Flavors:
  • Red Wine
Add to Tasting Journal

Product Description

  • This 100% Cabernet Sauvignon is a blend of our best Napa Valley lots from the 2003 vintage. The Reserve Cabernet is a stellar example of how the art of blending vineyards can produce a wine that has surpassed its individual parts. After three years of “resting” in 60 gallon toasted American Oak barrels, an intriguing wine balanced with complexity, and depth of flavor has emerged. Only 678 cases of this wine were produced in 6pk wooden lay-down boxes. The 2003 vintage, our 35th Anniversary, shows beautifully at this point and will continue to age gracefully for many years to come.

Expert Ratings

Ratings   Vintage Source Flavors
2002 WineSpectator earthy
CGCW - 90 Details: Here is a rich and very generous wine that relies a bit too much on its liberally laid-on oak, but beneath its sweeping sensations of cedar, vanilla, caramel and cocoanut, sports a good degree of youthful, curranty fruit. Even if skewed to barrel spice, it is a wonderfully available and easy-to-taste wine even now, yet its ageworthy structure and fine-grained tannin will allow it to hold up nicely as it finds a more harmonious fit of its many parts over the next four to six years. 2002 CGCW caramel, cedar, oak, spice, vanilla
WineSpectator - 92 Details: This wine grows on you, revealing both rich and subtle flavor nuances that spread out nicely. Built around a core of ripe cherry, wild berry and blackberry fruit, it picks up hints of sour cherry candy, currant, anise and cedary oak. The long, complex finish is supported by firm but ripe and polished tannins. Drink now through 2012. 1,000 cases made. –JL 2001 WineSpectator anise, blackberry, currant, oak, ripe cherry, sour, wild berry
CGCW - 90 Details: Rich in the toasted coconut, vanilla bean smells from oak barrel aging, this ripe, balanced and somewhat fleshy offering delivers plenty of Cabernet fruit once past its creamy, cedary coverlet. In the mouth, it is especially impressive for its admirable depth and its luxuriously lengthy flavors. It should improve for some years yet and hold for up to a decade. 2001 CGCW coconut, oak, vanilla
WineEnthusiast - 85 Details: Ripe and smooth, soft and chocolaty as a candy bar, with currant and blackberry flavors, this is an easy drinking, instantly likeable wine. It’s meant to be consumed early and will not age. 2001 WineEnthusiast blackberry, currant
WineEnthusiast - 91 Details: Cinnamon, cassis, currant, mint and cherry aromas provide a strong display of varietal character that continues to the palate with milk chocolate, plums and barrel char. A meaty mouthful of rich, full tannins leaves a lingering complex sensation on the finish. 1999 WineEnthusiast cassis, cherry, chocolate, cinnamon, currant, meaty, mint
CGCW - 88 Details: Oak plays a major role in this wine, as it has in its predecessors, and here, that oak is joined by background notes of ripe currants and blackberries. The wine is full in body and supple at the front of the palate before running into cedary and woody notes and a noticeable edge of drying tannins. Its ripeness is evident from start to finish, and the wine asks a fair bit of cellaring of those who would collect it. 1999 CGCW blackberries, oak
CGCW - 85 Details: Early in our writing careers, we visited some of the most famous French producers, and we have always remembered the vintner who told us that he uses extra oak in weak vintages because the fruit cannot carry the wine by itself. This wine might seem to have been made according to that philosophy except that it has always been made with generous lashings of oak, and, in this less than stellar vintage, it comes across as ripe, dry and far too drenched in wood. 1998 CGCW oak
WineSpectator - 92 Details: Smooth, ripe, rich and polished, with currant, cherry, coffee, prune and tobacco flavors, turning silky and supple on the long, rich aftertaste. Best from 2000 through 2009. 900 cases made. –JL 1995 WineSpectator cherry, coffee, currant, prune, tobacco
WineSpectator - 90 Details: Tightly wound, firm and compact, with ripe, floral, plum and berry flavors; turns rich with mineral and spicy notes. Muscular but ripe, rustic tannins finish it off. Best into 2000. 620 cases made. –JL 1994 WineSpectator berry, mineral, plum, spicy notes
1 2

Food Pairings

Category Pairing
Cheese Blue Cheese
Red Meat Beef, Pork Chops, Lamb, Grilled or Roast Leg, Grilled or Broiled Chops or Rack of Lamb, Veal, Veal Carpaccio, Game, Farmed Venison, Buffalo, Pate or Liver, Variety Meats or Organ Meats, Liver
Poultry & Eggs Duck Confit
Vegetables Corn, Roasted, Mushrooms, Caramelized Shallots, Potatoes, Sauteed Potatoes
Sauces Red Wine Sauce
Herbs & Spices Basil
Poultry & Eggs Quail stuffed with Swiss Chard & Italian Sausage

Wine Terms

Name Value
Cabernet Sauvignon (cab er nay saw vee nyon)—This highly adaptable grape grows almost anywhere it is relatively warm, but the best wines come from the Burgundy region of France (where it is a noble variety), California, and Australia. It became famous through the red wines of the Médoc district of Bordeaux and is now grown in Washington, southern France, Italy, Australia, South Africa, Chile, and Argentina. Cabernet Sauvignon grapes make wines that are high in tannin and medium- to full-bodied. Usually identified as having black currant or cassis flavors, the grape can also possess vegetal tones when the grapes are less than ideally ripe. The best wines are rich and firm with great depth, and are often aged for fifteen years or more. Because it is highly tannic, Cabernet Sauvignon is often blended with other less-tannic grapes such as Merlot.
Napa This tiny strip of land just north of San Francisco is home to America’s most prestigious wineries. Its climate is ideal for viticulture. Ironically, it was deemed too ideal for some vintners, who have moved their vineyards from the valley’s flat plain to the hills in the east and west, adhering to the idea that grapes that struggle to grow yield better wine. The climate, soil, and individual wineries are enormously varied, so it’s impossible to identify a singular trait of Napa wines. In addition, nearly every noble grape is grown here, although Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon are the primary grapes. In the past, Napa’s wines have alternated between extremely fruity and fat to lean and subtle. Today the best Napa wines have achieved a balance between these extremes. Many are made to be drunk young and have abundant ripe fruit; others can be initially hard and tannic, but soften over four or five years to perfumed, cedary fruit. White Napa wines are excellent with fresh-grilled fish and chicken, but can also cope with more spicy and creamy flavors. Many Napa reds will overwhelm delicate cuisine, but rich red meat and cheeses do make good companions.
United States Wineries exist in all fifty states, but the most predominant (and best) wine comes from Northern California, Oregon, and Washington State, with New York gaining a foothold in the industry. American wines make up about 75% of all wine sales in the US. The appellation system uses the term AVA (American Viticultural Area) to determine where wines were produced, but grape varieties can be planted anywhere in the country. American wineries generally use varietal labeling, and government regulations require that the variety on the label must make up at least 75% of the blend (in Oregon it’s 90%). The words reserve, special selection, private reserve, classic, and so on have no legal definition in the US. Some wineries use these terms to indicate their better wines; others use the words as a marketing tool to move lower quality wines off the shelf.
California California produces the majority of wine made in the United States. Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc, Zinfandel and Pinot Noir dominate the wine production in California, but many other varietials thrive in the California climate. Many fine wines are produced in California using Mediterranean grapes.
Napa Cabernet Sauvignon Over the past few decades, the Napa Valley has become synonymous with award winning Cabernet Sauvignon. Originating from the Bordeaux region in France, Cabernet Sauvignon is truly wine's ambassador to the world. Now in the annals of wine history, this varietal put the Napa Valley on the map. There is a select set of conditions, often enjoyed in Napa, which makes for world class examples of the grape. These include long, sunny days in warm climates, in conjunction with porous, well draining soils.
Napa County Napa County is located north of the San Francisco Bay Area in California. At the north end of Napa County is the Bay Area's second tallest peak Mount Saint Helena, and to the far south of Napa County lays the section of the Napa Valley that bleeds into Carneros. When the first white settlers arrived in the early 1830s, there were six tribes in the valley speaking different dialects and they were often at war with each other. The Mayacomos tribe lived in the area where Calistoga was founded. Napa County was one of the original counties of California, created in 1850 at the time of statehood. Napa Valley is widely considered one of the top wine regions in California and all of the United States. By the end of the nineteenth century there were more than one hundred and forty wineries in the area. Today Napa Valley features more than two hundred wineries and grows many different grape varieties including Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Merlot, and Zinfandel. The region is visited by as many as five million people each year, making it the second to Disneyland as the most popular tourist destination in California.

Tasting Notes

Please login to view your personal tasting notes.Login