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2006 Joseph Phelps Insignia

Not Currently In Auction

Latest Sale Price

February 25, 2024 - $215

Estimate

RATINGS

95+ Robert M. Parker Jr.

...abundant notes of licorice, black currants, charcoal, black olives, and graphite. Full-bodied, pure, and rich with moderately high tannins, it represents a California version of a Bordeaux from Pauillac or St.-Julien.

94Wine Spectator

Teasing with its floral, spicy cherry, wild berry and currant aromas, this is full-bodied, firm and structured, tight and focused...

94Wine Enthusiast

... Just massive in blackberries, black currants, coffee, cocoa, dried herbs and 100% new, smoky-sweet French...

90+ Stephen Tanzer

Fresher on the nose than the Napa bottling, offering cassis, bitter chocolate and roasted herbs. Then very ripe and dense but suave, showing good energy and a slightly clenched middle palate.

17Jancis Robinson

...Very powerful, very slick and dominating. Lots of rich cassis and sweet spices, densely thickly layered. Certainly dramatic and sophisticated..

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,