Not yet bottled, the 2020 Harlan Estate will certainly be a gorgeous wine and, I suspect, the wine of the vintage. Deep purple-hued, with a classic Harlan bouquet of darker cassis and blue fruits, it has lots of chalky minerality, gravelly earth, and floral aromatics, medium to full-bodied richness, a good spine of acidity, and enough tannins to warrant 5-7 years of bottle age. Harvested very early, it shows the fresher, elegant style of the estate today but is just a brilliant-looking barrel sample that should have a long life.

By Jeb Dunnuck February 2023