Beautiful opaque ruby colour, leading with a subtlety that reveals lovely cedar and tobacco spices and Bay Laurel. Full-bodied, exhibiting a delicate balance between the structure's intensity and the fruit profile's lightness. A substantial backbone of acid tension, a hallmark of the 2016 vintage, lends buoyancy to the density of fruit, which lands on the mid-palate and stays there, building in stature and gaining intensity. A blanket of long, velvety tannins wraps itself around the palate, and the finish is long and exacting with spearmint and a wealth of warm earthen hummus notes. The Tesseron family, owners of Château Pontet-Canet, purchased the estate in 2016. It was owned by the late actor Robin Williams, who had planted the vines on the estate. Jérôme Ledit is the Estate Manager and Michel Rolland is the consultant oenologist. The vineyards are planted with Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc and have been dry-farmed since the first day in 2016 that Alfred Tesseron set foot on the property. It is already unquestionably one of Napa Valley's greatest understated assets. (Drink between 2023-2035)

This is the debut vintage of this wine from the esteemed Bordeaux owner, Alfred Tesseron, who bought the property in the Napa mountains in 2016. Aromas of plums, wet earth, fresh herbs and tobacco. Some green olives. Turns to blueberries and blackberries. Full-bodied, yet reserved and layered with chocolate, walnuts and plums. Firm yet polished tannins give a framed sense to the wine. Savory. Racy and beautifully structured, it’s extremely drinkable already. Real wine.

The 2016 Pym-Rae continues to show well, with a rich, meaty, powerful style as well as loads of chocolaty black fruits, tobacco, black olive tapenade, and leather-like aromas and flavors. It's beautiful on the palate, with massive concentration and depth as well as terrific balance. This gorgeous, deep, opulent beauty is going to benefit from another 4-6 years of bottle age and live for 3-4 decades.

A blend of 76% Cabernet Sauvignon, 17% Merlot and 7% Cabernet Franc, the 2016 Pym-Rae displays a deep garnet-purple color and reveals wonderfully fragrant notes of candied violets, wilted roses, damp soil and black tea over a core of red and black currants, black cherries and warm blackberries plus touches of cigar box and camphor. Medium to full-bodied, the palate is evocatively singular, offering that rock-solid structure of mountain fruit, yet these are wonderfully ripe, silt-like tannins that beautifully support the elegant red and black fruit layers, finishing very long and very perfumed.

The inaugural vintage release of Pym-Rae, interesting to taste alongside the 2017, as the 2016 vintage was a little more balanced. This is gorgeous, flecked with wild herbs, campfire smoke, liquorice and sun-baked black fruits. The high Cabernet Sauvignon comes through in a eucalyptus and black pepper spice to the finish. Plenty of tannins, this can be approached with a few hours in a carafe but will soften further over the next few years. First year of biodynamic conversion and first year of dry farming. Fermented in 10hl concrete tanks, with all destemming done by hand, as at the family's Pontet Canet estate back in Pauillac. Winemaker for this was Thomas Comme, now replaced by Jerome Ledit. 70% new oak. The estate is located on Mount Veeder, on the border with Sonoma and is one of the highest vineyards in Napa.