- Library Release-

Regular Price $175.00, Brave New World Pricing $79.99 with shipping included on 4 bottles or more

I’ve known winemaker Dawnine Dyer for over thirty years and she’s been selling wine to PRIMA for a lot longer than that! While she cut her teeth dealing for 25 years with the French brain-trust making sparkling wine at the then-brand-new Domaine Chandon in Yountville, we are more familiar with the tiny production of Dyer Wines she makes with her husband- Bill Dyer of Sterling Vineyards fame, atop Diamond Mountain. These elegant, complex wines evoke a different era of the Napa Valley elgance and age wonderfully. Dawnine and Bill, though, are intimately involved these days in a different, far more exalted wine project called Meteor. Developed in 1998 in Coombsville in East Napa, this vineyard soon became one of the most coveted sites for Cabernet in the valley providing grapes for the likes of DuMOL, Favia, Arietta and Lail, but it was the miniscule production of the vineyard’s own wines, made by Dawnine and Bill that have put Meteor on the map of collectors and wine lovers everywhere. While some of the first vintages of Perseid, a cuvee that shows off all three Cabernet clones they have planted- emphasized power over finesse, more recent harvests have taken a welcome turn to better reflect the kinds of wines Dawnine and Bill really love: wines of polish, elegance and complexity. The 2016, re-released by the winery at decidedly Brave New World pricing, is, I think, exactly how this winemaking duo envisioned the project. While certainly heady, dusky and powerful, plumbing its depths reveals a wine with a lighter, dare I say, more Margaux-like personality. Redolent of hoisin, cassis and black truffle, there is chocolate-covered blueberry, freshly turned loam, graphite, white pepper and Indian spices on a full frame that remains lively thanks to its natural acidity and really fine grained tannins. Drinking perfectly now- at nine years past the harvest- it’s also a fair bet to age gracefully for the next decade or more.

At $175 a bottle, Meteor Perseid was a cult-like wine limited to collectors lucky enough to be on the mailing list. At $80, well, even the more casual Cab lover among us can grab at least a few bottles to try, right? Wine Industry? More of this please! 

Vinous Media: Dawnine Dyer crafted two memorable Cabernets for Meteor in 2016. The wines are rich and dramatic, yet also offer tons of finesse for such big wines, along with the minerality and savoriness that are such signatures of Coombsville. Meteor’s 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Perseid is very pretty, and, dare I say it, understated for a wine that in the past has been much more about impact than finesse. Inky, powerful, and voluptuous in the glass, the Perseid is simply gorgeous today. Dark red cherry, plum, cedar, smoke, and tobacco all build in the glass. The 2016 is a sensual, mysterious Cabernet, and yet my impression is that it will be even better in another few years’ time. This is one of the better vintages of the Perseid I can remember tasting, and certainly the most elegant. Drink 2021-2031 95 points