A Napa Valley icon, the 2016 Promontory is powerful, poised, and deeply complex. With perfect 100-point scores from Wine Advocate and James Suckling, it layers black fruit, earth, spice, and truffle over a structure of fine, muscular tannins. Profoundly age-worthy and beautifully refined.

The Wine Advocate | RP 100
Published: Jan 15, 2021
Drink: 2024-2065

Deep garnet-purple, the 2016 Promontory comes barreling out of the glass with bold scents of black cherries, blueberry pie and licorice, leading to a slowly emerging core of crème de cassis, dark chocolate, black soil and truffles plus touches of cumin seed, mossy bark and beef drippings. The full-bodied palate is densely packed with muscular fruit, backed by a rock-solid structure of very firm, exquisitely ripe, grainy tannins and fantastic tension. The finish is both powerful and beautifully nuanced, hedonic and cerebrally gratifying. This singularly stunning expression of Napa Valley is to be released by the winery in 2021.

During a visit to Promontory in December, I tasted the four latest vintages with winemaker David Cilli, Cory Empting and Will Harlan.

The current release is the 2015 vintage, recently offered on the domestic market with the international offer coming out this spring.

It was an absolute joy to taste the perfect 2016 Promontory again, a wine that Cilli mentioned "so clearly shows the characteristics of Promontory."

Of the 2017 (now in bottle), Cilli said, “We were not able to pick the last few Promontory blocks because of the fires, so it was a very small harvest this year. We had picked a few lots just after the heat spells, and we were able to maintain that freshness in the wine."

The 2018 vintage was tasted as a barrel sample, due to be bottled in early 2021. Cilli said, "We picked for six weeks at Promontory. I picked maybe 90 different lots!" Given the many, incredibly varied aspects, altitudes and soil types at this remote vineyard, this kind of parcel separation is critical to producing a wine of exceptional quality. This 2018 is truly a wine achievement to behold.

Jamessuckling.com | JS 100
Published: Jan 8, 2020

I tasted this for the first time last year and it has only got greater. The nose is breathtaking. Purity with incredible complexity, showing dried mushrooms, blackberries, currants and cedar. Some wet earth. Dense and layered blackberries and blueberries. Full-bodied and long with beautiful depth and intensity. The tannins are ultra long. Black truffle comes through. Love the length, finesse and focus. Release in 2022.

Decanter | D 98
Published: Feb 17, 2022
Drink: 2030-2050

Beautiful vivid purple colour in the glass. Softly perfumed blackcurrants with milk chocolate - smells so welcoming and appealing. This is excellent from the start - you have an intensity of flavour, the richness, the depth - with a really dark, spicy undertone but these plush tannis that are soft, softly chewy and delicate yet fill the mouth. You can feel the winemaking on show with the impression this has been well handled and worked so carefully to get such harmonious tannins and at the same time an overall excellent expression of fruit. It's a full wine but really refined - still structured and expansive and still with so much life to give. I love the feeling you get tasting this wine, it's hefty no doubt, powerful but encased so well that you just get everything on full blast that you want to sit and slowly think about. A contemplative wine but one for total enjoyment.

Jancisrobinson.com | JR 18.5
Published: Feb 19, 2020
Drink: 2023-2037

Sophisticated nose and great lift and life. Lots of extract and dry appetising tannins. (Not the richness, sweetness and roundness of Harlan.) Good energy.