2018 | Realm | The Absurd

The 2018 reveals a dense purple/blue color to go with a monster bouquet of blackcurrants, scorched earth/burning embers, tobacco, lead pencil shavings, chocolate, and gravelly earth. It builds beautifully with time in the glass and has incredible purity, silky, polished tannins, and a dense, layered mid-palate.

Reviews:

• Wine Advocate: The 2018 The Absurd—the estate's über-blend of the best elements from the vintage—displays a deep garnet-purple color, offering alluring notes of baked plums, crème de cassis and boysenberries with suggestions of chocolate box, aniseed, iron ore and candied violets plus a perfumed hint of Indian spices. The full-bodied palate is an exercise in decadence, coating the mouth in black fruit preserves and exotic spice layers, supported by velvety tannins and beautifully integrated freshness, finishing epically long and fragrant.

• Jeb Dunnuck: As always, the 2018 Absurd is a cellar selection of what the estate thinks is the absolute best they can do in the vintage, and in this reviewer’s opinion, they succeed brilliantly. (I’ve rated four of the five vintages I’ve tasted 100 points.) The 2018 reveals a dense purple/blue color to go with a monster bouquet of blackcurrants, scorched earth/burning embers, tobacco, lead pencil shavings, chocolate, and gravelly earth. I’ve often compared this wine to a great Pessac from Bordeaux given its incredible minerality and cold fireplace-like nuances, and the 2018 has these in spades. Concentrated, full-bodied, and built like a skyscraper, it builds beautifully with time in the glass and has incredible purity, silky, polished tannins, and a dense, layered mid-palate. As with the majority of Realm’s 2018s, the cellar is going to be your friend, since this needs a good 5-7 years of bottle age, but it will be incredibly long-lived. Hats off to winemaker Benoit Touquette and the entire team at Realm for yet another magical, legendary wine.

Producer Information

Realm Cellars is a journey. Just eight years ago, the winery was nearly bankrupt when owner Scott Becker and winemaker Benoit Touquette teamed up to revive it. Fueled by a clear vision, an entrepreneurial spirit and relentless determination, they transformed Realm into one of the most electrifying domaines in Napa Valley today. Now with its own hillside Estate in the Stags Leap District, 50 acres of vines and access to a number of the finest vineyards in the appellation, Realm makes some of the most sought-after wines in Napa Valley. Making wine at the very highest level is at the core of Realm Cellars. Since 2012, the wines have been awarded more 100-point scores from internationally recognized wine critics than any other producer in Napa Valley. The Realm portfolio includes both Single Vineyard wines and Proprietary Blends – collectively, the wines are equal parts an expression of the land and an articulation of the winemaking craft. The house style of Realm can best be described as a creative tension between richness and precision, density and finesse, purity of fruit and nuance. The next chapter of Realm Cellars promises to be just as bold. The vision for what Realm can be encompasses more than creating fine wines. This passionate team is ready to push ahead in its relentless quest to secure an enduring place among the icons of the wine world. The best is yet to come.

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