2009 Scarecrow, Cabernet Sauvignon, Rutherford

Put your seatbelts on for the 2009 Scarecrow, which should end up rivaling their prodigious 2007. A wine of great intensity, an opaque purple color, a mind-blowing nose of almost liquid flowers intermixed with crushed rock, blueberry, blackberry, and cassis, the wine has terrific minerality, laser-like focus, and a stacked-and-packed palate that builds incrementally like a 20-story skyscraper. This is truly prodigious stuff and an early candidate for the wine of the vintage. Moreover, it should be relatively precocious in its youth given the sweet tannins, and last for 20-25 years. (Not yet released) Tel. (707) 963-3361; Fax (707) 968-9367

The 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon comes across as silky, perfumed and quite supple. It is a decidedly cooler, more inward wine than the 2008 tasted alongside it, yet there is plenty of fleshiness in the glass to make me think it will drink well for at least a handful of years. Blackberries, graphite, spices and licorice are layered into the long finish.