2013 BOND Quella
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Tasting notes
The 2013 Quella is dark, ample and enveloping in all of its dimensions. Super-ripe black cherry, mocha, spice and leather notes flesh out in the glass. All things considered, the Quella is a fairly approachable 2013 Cabernet. Although it can be enjoyed with minimal cellaring, the 2013 has plenty of vintage 2013 structure lurking beneath the huge, expansive fruit. This is a gorgeous Quella.
Critic scores
Robert Parker
Robert Parker
More reviews and scores
Deep red-ruby. Very ripe aromas of blackberry, cassis, violet, graphite and crushed rock. High-pitched and distinctly black in fruit character on the palate but very closed in on itself today, even a bit lean, showing an element of minty reserve. This brooding, firmly tannic, structured wine is less giving than the Melbury '13, with its tannins coming across as dustier. And yet it possesses lovely aromatic lift from the sand in its soil and an ethereal quality and tension from the river cobble.
The 2013 Quella is a powerhouse. Graphite, smoke, game, tobacco, incense and licorice, along with beams of imposing tannin, give the Quella its intense, brooding personality. Readers will have to be especially patient here, as the tannins are forbidding. The 2013 is a fabulous Quella.
Much more structured, muscular, tannic and intense is the 2013 Quella, which exhibits blackberry notes, licorice, some truffle, graphite and damp earth, huge fruit, a muscular, full-bodied mouthfeel, and a long, moderately tannic finish. Forget it for a few years and drink it over the following 25-30+ years.