Top Calera ever for the Wine Spectator and Top 100, too:
A packed red, with a core of mulled dark currant, black cherry and blackberry paste flavors that are dense yet defined, while singed anise, alder and warm earth notes fill in throughout. The rigid structure carries the finish, leaving a chalky, mouthwatering echo. With the fruit to match its matrix, this should be a beauty at its peak. Best from 2026 through 2040.
And best ever for Wine & Spirits:
Here are the 2021s from Calera’s monopole on Mt. Harlan, quite possibly the winery’s best bottlings since Josh Jensen sold the brand to Duckhorn in 2017. Made by Jensen’s protégé, Mike Waller, all of the 2021s, from separate parcels on Mt. Harlan, seem related but different, sometimes dramatically so. Ryan is a 13-acre parcel, some 2,500 feet above sea level; the vines here now more than 20 years old. Upon first whiff you’ll contend with conflicting impressions, the luminous, saturated red fruit flavors, somewhere between plum and cherry, and the dusty chaparral notes—olive leaf, herb oil, the scent of garrigue in the wind. Like all of the Mt. Harlan ’21s, the structure is beautiful, firmly planted tea tannins with a subtle power and stony frame, generous and complex and magnificently proportioned.