Description
100
The Wine Independent
Review Date: 04/2023
The 2020 Harlan Estate is deep purple-black in color. It needs a lot of swirling to bring out notions of chocolate-covered cherries, mulberries, and crème de cassis, followed by hints of tar, violets, redcurrant jelly, and tilled soil, with a waft of black truffles. The medium to full-bodied palate is very tightly wound, with lots of mineral, red berry, and black fruit layers intertwined to offer an incredibly complex, yet beautifully poised, experience. The tannins are super fine-grained and the tension gives an incredible finish with a minerally swing. Wow: it’s a pure, effortless, truthful wine. (LPB)
99
Decanter
Review Date: 07/2023
The 2020 Harlan Estate is such a pretty wine—compact, tightly knit, with a coiled-up energy that delivers surprise and intrigue in every swirl and sip as the wine evolves in the glass. Leading with beautifully delicate wild herbs, dried and crushed bay laurel and sage, red and black currant fruit, and a pop of liquorice intermixed with cigar leaf. Medium to full-bodied with a richness to the mid-palate and intense grip from the wine’s multidimensional acidity. Almost feathery and extremely fine tannins frame all this, and the wine finishes long, cool, and so composed. (JC)
99
James Suckling
Review Date: 02/2023
Blackberry, chocolate, walnut, hazelnut, graphite, and light tar. Then goes to seaweed and umami. Cassis. Full-bodied, but so agile and featherlight with bay leaf, berry and very fine tannins. Endless. The finish caresses every inch of your palate. Thought-provoking and meditative. Extremely long and seamless finish. Better after 2029.
95
Vinous
Review Date: 12/2023
The 2020 Harlan Estate is one of the very best wines I have tasted from this challenging vintage so far. Dark cherry, plum, cedar, tobacco, chocolate, licorice and dark spice all build in the glass. There is a bit of tension in the tannins, but all the elements are so well-balanced. This a truly eye-opening wine with regards to what was possible in 2020. I am not sure what that Harlan team did, but all I can say is Bravo! (AG)
94
Jeb Dunnuck
Review Date: 12/2023
The 2020 Cabernet Sauvignon showed beautifully, with a deeper purple hue as well as a pure bouquet of cassis, scorched earth, graphite, and violets that has terrific intensity and depth. Medium to full-bodied on the palate, it has good concentration, a balanced, layered mouthfeel, plenty of tannins, and a great finish. As with the BOND releases, this was harvested early, and they seemed to have escaped any obvious smoke effects. This is a beautifully balanced, impressive 2020 that I would enjoy over the coming two decades.
JR
Jancis Robinson
Review Date: 04/2024
Harlan Estate has two very distinct soil types: the hills to the east, of volcanic origin, and the slopes to the west, of sedimentary composition, leading to a paucity of topsoil. The grapes are sorted by hand and fermented in small lots in wooden fermenters. The wine is then pressed off into French barriques, a mix of new and used oak, and aged for about 24 months before being bottled, unfined and unfiltered. Practising organic and biodynamic.Perfumed, with a dense black-fruit core, yet somewhat dry and serious in its fruit character. There’s lots of freshness and drive on the palate, with firm yet impressively dusty and fine-knitted tannins. This wine has depth and complexity, with a long finish and a cocoa hint. Young, but will evolve wonderfully with time. 18+/20 points (FG)
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