Sign In

2008 Joseph Phelps Insignia

Not Currently In Auction

Latest Sale Price

January 21, 2024 - $200

Estimate

RATINGS

97The Wine Advocate

...a towering, statuesque wine bursting with blackberry jam, tar, spices, leather and licorice. It shows fabulous depth and richness backed up by serious, imposing tannins that suggest it has a long life.

95James Suckling

What a wonderful wine here. The nose shows a fabulous combination of dark fruits, chocolate, spices and caramel. The palate is silky textured with lots of ripe yet beautiful fruit and super silky, tight tannins...

94Wine Spectator

Dense and chewy, this is very tight and closed, but the glimpses of fruit offer tight mineral, crushed rock, graphite, dried currant, cedar and anise. Full-bodied and way too young to drink now, this needs time...

93+ Stephen Tanzer

Black fruits, minerals, licorice, tar, menthol and sweet oak on the nose. Sweet and creamy on entry, then quite penetrating and tight in the mid-palate, showing a medicinal reserve for the vintage.

93Wine Enthusiast

... With rich blackberry and cassis flavors wrapped into thick tannins and fine new oak sweetness...

REGION

United States, California, Napa Valley

Napa Valley AVA is the most famous winemaking region in the United States and one of the most prestigious in the world. With nearly 43,000 acres of vineyards and more than 300 wineries, it is the heart of fine wine production in the United States. Winemaking started in Napa in 1838 when George C. Yount planted grapes and began producing wine commercially. Other winemaking pioneers followed in the late 19th century, including the founders of Charles Krug, Schramsberg, Inglenook and Beaulieu Vineyards. An infestation of phylloxera, an insect that attacks vine roots, and the onset of Prohibition nearly wiped out the nascent Napa wine industry in the early 20th century. But by the late 1950s and early 1960s Robert Mondavi and other visionaries were producing quality wines easily distinguishable from the mass-produced jug wines made in California’s Central Valley. Napa Valley’s AVA was established in 1983, and today there are 16 sub-appellations within the Napa Valley AVA. Many grapes grow well in Napa’s Mediterranean climate, but the region is best known for Cabernet Sauvignon. Chardonnay is also very successfully cultivated, and about 30% of the AVA’s acreage is planted to white grapes, with the majority of those grapes being Chardonnay,