Ok, listen up. This is a story about a Yountville winery producing some of the very best Cabernets in Napa Valley. Blankiet Estate Cabs are not well known, which is surprising, given how elegant, balanced, and sensual they are.
I attended a tasting at Blankiet yesterday at which their Cabs crushed venerated, first-growth, Bordeaux wines that cost as much as four times more than the Blankiet Cabs.
If the Judgment of Paris wine tasting in 1976 hadn’t ever happened (at which American wines dominated revered French labels), the tasting I attended proved to me that Napa Valley Cabernets can be far superior than costly, first-growth Bordeaux wines.
(Keep reading: YOU will be able to take the Blankiet/Bordeaux Challenge yourself at Blankiet Estate … read on for details!)
The Blankiet Cabernets that were tasted against Bordeaux’ top wines were:
+ The 2018 and 2019 Blankiet Estate Proprietary Red, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot
+ The 2018 and 2019 Cabernet called Mythicvs, which looks like a typo, but which crushed every Bordelaise wine on the table in terms of purity, elegance, finesse, texture, and balance.
Mythicvs: You would expect the “v” to be a “u,” but winery owner Claude Blankiet, proudly steeped in the Classics, had other ideas.
Mythicvs, properly spelled with a “u,” is an adjective from Latin, meaning “legendary.” And what an appropriate term for the wine in this bottle! Every time I have tasted this wine, I have slapped my forehead as in a “DUH!”moment, asking myself why hadn’t I bought more before the vintage sold out?
According to Claude, Mythicvs is produced to exhibit balance, elegance, harmony, and sophistication. And of the many vintages I have tasted, this goal has been reached again and again.
Blankiet only produces 150 cases of Mythicvs each year, while top Bordeaux factories, er,wineries, may produce 25,000 cases of a first-growth wine. As such, Claude can afford to micro-manage the care of his grapes during the growing season and afterward, during production.
I am not alone in crowing about Blankiet’s killer Cabs. Respected wine critic Jeb Dunnuck, formerly with the Wine Advocate, recently rated each of the 2018 and 2019 Mythicvs wines 100 points, the same perfect score he ascribed to the 2019 Chateau Lafite Rothschild, reputedly one of the world’s greatest wines.
For the record: Long before Dunnuck rated these wines, I had found them so compelling that I bought them for my cellar. After visiting Blankiet Estate as a paying customer over the years, I befriended owners Claude and Katherine Blankiet. On the basis of our friendship and my professional interest as a wine writer and winemaker, I was invited to the Blankiet/Bordeaux comparative tasting.
Claude Blankiet
Claude’s goal was to prove to himself -- and to anyone who wants to take the Challenge -- that his Cabernets are as good as, and possibly better than, the best of Bordeaux.
The Pepsi/Coke Challenge is so…. 20th century. Claude has updated the idea and thrown down the gauntlet, offering visitors to his winery a chance themselves to take the Blankiet/Bordeaux Challenge!
In his review of Blankiet Estate wines, Dunnuck commented on several connections between the Blankiet Cabs and the 2019 Château Lafite Rothschild.
“The 2019 Blankiet Estate Proprietary Red is straight-up incredible. It reminds me of a great vintage of Château Lafite Rothschild with its elegance and purity. It is just pure class!”
“Pure gold. The 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Mythicvs has that incredible profile of power without weight that is so hard to find, and again, it has a Lafite-like elegance and class. This wine absolutely stopped me in my tracks.”
Claude was not surprised by Dunnuck’s comparative statements, for what Jeb did not know is that 75% of Blankiet’s Cabernet vines were grafted 26 years ago with budwood from Château Lafite!
“The complexity of our fruit arises from the soil – we sit atop three seismic faults, which helps produce great grapes,” says Claude, adding, “but good genes also help!”
Claude, who grew up in Dijon, France, has always preferred French-style Cabernets (Bordeaux wines) over the bombastic, over-extracted, over-alcoholized, over-oaked Cabernets that so many American wineries produce. These wines lack the finesse, precision, and balance that make Claude swoon.
“California gives us more consistent fruit purity than Bordeaux, but sometimes we just have too much sun, adds Claude.
He continues: “To moderate this, we installed 70,000 linear feet of shade cloth, 9,000 vaporizing misters, and two optical sorters to eliminate all high-sugar content berries that would contribute to over-ripeness and higher alcohol levels.”
Blankiet’s exceptional wines are made by winemaker Graeme MacDonald, who shares a reluctance with Claude to make wines with over-ripe fruit and high alcohol.
Claude and his wife, Katherine, are some of the last, old-time, original, independent, winery owners in Napa Valley, which is quickly becoming a corporate clone of industrial corporations, bent on buying up family wineries at an alarming rate. These are NOT the kind of clones we welcome in wine country.
To initiate the Blankiet/Bordeaux Challenge, Claude, Julian Christian, a certified sommelier and hospitality director at Blankiet Estate, and I sat down with nine Cabernets, each poured four hours earlier to optimize their appeal.
Julian pours for the tasting.
In the first round, we tasted three wines that Dunnuck had reviewed.
To my palate, there was NO contest. The Blankiet wines dominated the round. And the 2018 Mythicvs clearly bested the Bordeaux.
Flight 1
2018 Blankiet Estate Proprietary Red
Gorgeous red fruit nose, mostly of ripe cherries. I was prepared to score this wine 100 points on the basis of aroma alone. Alluring, welcoming, warming. Dunnuck scored this wine 98+ points, but for me, it was a perfect wine, so beautifully rich in fruit aromatics that I would happily pour it into my home humidifier to be able to smell it all day long in every room of the house! 100 points, my score.
2018 Blankiet Estate Mythicvs
A gentle hint of new leather as well as the scents of ripe black olives and ripe red fruit. If this wine were a movie star, it would be Charlize Theron, known for her sensual beauty and ability to charm and captivate your heart. Just like this wine. 100 points, my score. (All scores hereon will be my scores, not Jeb’s.)
2018 Chateau Lafite Rothschild
A much tighter nose than either of the Blankiet wines in this flight, though there are hints of wax, leather, briar, and a soupcon of greenness. On the palate the wine is flat, linear. The attack is on standard, but the middle palate disappears, and as you would expect at this age, this wine has a disappointing finish. 97 points.
Blankiet's vineyard, tucked into a hillside in Yountville:
Wanting to go beyond Dunnuck’s realm, Claude and Julian decided that since we were together tasting venerated Bordeaux first-growths, we might as well rate a second flight of wines from the 2019 vintage. I was not reluctant to join them! These are some of the very best Cabernets in the world, assembled for our professional edification… oh, and yes, our pleasure!
Flight 2
2019 Blankiet Estate Proprietary Red
Unusual but alluring aroma of warm clothes just taken out of the dryer, followed by aromas of ripe fruits in a warm, baked compote. Gorgeous integration of fruit and alcohol. Tannins are evident but submissive, even at this age, to the fruit, which is sublime. 98+ points.
2019 Chateau La Mission Haut-Brion
A boatload of ripe fruit on the nose! Would score this wine 100 points on the aromatics alone. On the palate, this is a thrilling wine. Nothing short of ethereal. 100 points.
2019 Blankiet Estate Mythicvs
Rich, ripe, dark fruit on the nose. On the palate, let’s put it this way – it was impossible to spit this out. I had to own it for a while. Of the nine wines we tasted, this was the most outstanding wine of the tasting, beating out such classic labels as Chateau Margaux, Chateau Mouton Rothschild and two vintages (2018 and 2019) of Chateau Lafite Rothschild.
The 2019 Mythicvs may very well become the best wine of the year for me and we are only two weeks into the year. You can't make a more sublime, sexier, more sensual wine. Period. I was forced to rate this wine 101 points. You do the math.
2019 Chateau Lafite Rothschild
Elegant, herbaceous nose, plenty of complexity. There are cherries present, and a cherry-liqueur top note, suggesting over-ripeness. The nose finishes with a hint of Balsamic acidity. The palate is linear, the fruit is over-ripe and the wine lacks the finesse you expect from such an important label. 98+ points.
2019 Chateau Margaux
An enticing nose, though there are hints of alcohol and after a few deep whiffs, copper pennies proliferate. The wine is lean on the palate. I'm inclined to call it naked. The fruit is underripe, very lean, the finish is disappointing. And they charge, on average, across America, $850 for this? 97 points.
2019 Chateau Mouton Rothschild
Straw and hay notes on the nose, with a strong finish of Band-aids. A dirty wine, compromised by Brettanomyces. The worst wine on the table. 93 points
And now, the Good News!
I encouraged Claude to make this wine tasting experience available to visitors to his winery, so they can establish for themselves that his fairly priced, Napa Valley Cabs exhibit more finesse, elegance, charm and balance than Bordeaux' top wines, which cost many times more.
Book your own personal, private Blankiet/Bordeaux Challenge by sending an email to hospitality director Julian Christian:
For $500 per person, you will be poured 50 mL of six wines:
From 2018:
Blankiet Mythicvs
Blankiet Proprietary Red
Chateau Lafite Rothschild
From 2019:
Blankiet Mythicvs
Blankiet Proprietary Red
Chateau Lafite Rothschild
In the meantime, you can learn more about Claude’s winemaking philosophies and practices at blankiet.com