A Great Occasion Calls For A Great Wine!

Trade image from
www.heitzcellar.com

There are a lot of great family names in wine making and when it comes to great Cabernet Sauvignon, one of California’s best is Heitz.   Joe and Alice Heitz began producing great cabernets back in the early 60’s and Heitz Cellar continues to produces great wines today under the leadership of their kids Kathleen and David with a third generation of the family also becoming active.

Heitz Cellar is best known for its Martha’s Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon and it is, indeed, a great treat if you love and respect well-crafted and superbly aged Cabernet Sauvignon.  Its consistency is one of the reasons Wine Spectator named Heitz Cellar Martha’s Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon one of the top 12 wines of the 20^th Century.

Another great Cabernet from this family winery comes from their Trailside Vineyard.  The Heitz family acquired this vineyard in 1984.  With gently sloping land along Conn Creek, the Heitz family applies their same organic practices here as they do on Martha’s Vineyard.  They also apply the same care and skill in ageing their wine.  It spends 3 ½ years on oak and then additional time in the bottle for release.   The wine is capable of continued ageing and development in your cellar.

I discovered just how well when good friend Jared presented, as a gift, a bottle of 1998 Trailside Vineyard.  It was in a single word, superb.  Well aged, well balanced and with all the nuances and complexity you would expect in a great cabernet.    It was a thoughtful and treasured gift that will be long remembered.

The memory will be enhanced by the fact that I shared the bottle with the ever-fetching Mrs. Wine Guy on the occasion of her completing her final day of work and joining me in retirement. 

A good wine always makes a great occasion extra special.  Here’s hoping each of you gets that opportunity soon.   Salute!

A Good Time to Explore Cabernet Sauvignon

Despite being retired, The Wine Guy continues to work part-time in wine retail.  Doing so keeps me connected with the wine consuming public and with the trade as well.  The better distributors who supply the retail trade will regularly host wine tastings for key wine selling personnel to acquaint them with products.  Recently, I had the opportunity to taste and sample a broad selection of wines being featured for the holiday season by one of my employer’s better suppliers:  Republic National Distributing Company.   (Event photo at left is The Wine Guy with Terry Faunce, Accounts Manager for RNDC/Arizona)

While enjoying a couple of very good cabernet sauvignons at that tasting, I was struck by how seldom I’ve blogged about this great grape on Roger’s grapevine.  Cabernet Sauvignon is of course, one of most ubiquitous varietals in the wine world.  While Merlot has recently surpassed it in total worldwide plantings and while Syrah is grown in a greater number of wine producing areas, Cabernet Sauvignon remains the king of red grape varietals.     It is the most utilized singular red varietal and finds favor in a great number of the world’s most recognized and popular red blends.

Cabernet Sauvignon’s thick skin makes it adaptable to a number of growing conditions, provides ample and bold tannins that are conducive to good aging and flavor development.  On the vine, it is somewhat resistant to rot and frost.  It buds and ripens somewhat later than its frequent blending partners, Merlot and Cabernet Franc.  It gives rise to a great variety of fruit flavors that can vary with the terroir in which it is grown and also change in expression with the degree of ripening employed by the vintner.  It responds well to wood aging, primarily with oak, but also responds favorably to the chestnut and redwood aging that is practiced with it by some Portuguese and Italian producers.  Fruit flavors from a good cabernet sauvignon cover a wide range from cranberry to raspberry, from blueberry to dark cherry to black current.  The wine from this grape can evoke herbal elements that range from green pepper to mint and eucalyptus and even tobacco.  In varying cabernets you find hints of coffee, cedar, leather, vanilla mocha, and much, much more.  No wonder it has become a favorite of winemakers and wine sippers alike.   It is a versatile and flexible varietal that can be the source for great wines to fit almost any type of wine preference.

Here are few recent Wine Guy samplings that are recommended as cabernet sauvignons that you might want to sample:

Alder Ridge Horse Heaven Hills Cabernet Sauvignon:  

From one of the newer AVA’s in the U.S. northeast (established 2005) that is rapidly developing a reputation for great reds.  This is a rich expressive wine with notes of black cherry and cedar and a lingering finish.  The winemaker added small amounts of Merlot, Petit Verdot, Malbec and Cabernet Franc to create a lot of nuances that you will thoroughly enjoy if you properly decant this wine.

Rutherford Ranch Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon:

This organic producer is located along Napa’s famed Silverado trail, the home of some fabulous California Cabernets.  Initial notes of boysenberry and cranberry meld and blend into a toasty smooth caramel finish.  This is the wine in our glasses in the featured photo at the left.

Chateau St. Michele Indian Wells Cabernet Sauvignon:

Another great northeastern treasure, this comes from the Columbia Valley’s Wahale Slope area.  It benefits from some complimentary blending which includes Syrah, Malbec and Merlot. Look for some great dark fruit flavors with hints of vanilla and a caressing finish.

Santa Ema Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon Maipo Valley Cabernet Sauvignon:

This is a consistently good Chilean wine.  It offers blueberry, coffee and mocha.  It was described by a California wine merchant as having the smoothness of Barry White performing in a sequin suit and that smoothness makes it a favorite of the fetching Mrs. Wine Guy.

There are always great Cabernets to explore.   And recently, there has been a higher frequency of finding great cabs that rank in the high 80’s to low 90’s for under $25 (all the wines cited above fell in that category recently).   Thanks Terry, for helping to remind me that good cabernets are worth seeking out!  I hope each of you readers takes the opportunity to enjoy a cabernet sauvignon soon.

A look at Lander-Jenkins

One of the best things about being in the wine trade is the opportunity to attend trade shows and trade tasting events. Even though I’m retired, as both a writer and a part-timer at retail, I still get that opportunity occasionally and always enjoy the exploration. Recently, one of my local wholesalers hosted a tasting event for two wines being rolled out to a district retail group covering Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico. It didn’t hurt, at all, that the event was being held at one of my favorite sources for pizza in Scottsdale, Arizona. Thanks are due to Craig Cardella, Intermountain Regional Sales Manager from Rutherford Wine Company (pictured above with The Wine Guy) for both the wine AND the pizza tasting opportunity.

The wines were a Chardonnay and a Cabernet Sauvignon from Lander-Jenkins Vineyards, St Helena, California (Napa County). This winery is still run by third and fourth generation descendants of Welch immigrants but is now a part of the Rutherford Wine Company. Rutherford’s senior winemaker, Steve Reud, had a hand in the development of these two California appellation wines that are label-branded under the name: "spirit hawk". Both Lander-Jenkins and Rutherford have a long history of sustainable viniculture and the nesting of birds of prey (owls and hawks) are encouraged in their vineyards as a means of rodent control. Steve’s memory of a soaring hawk over one of the company’s vineyards was the inspiration for the wine’s name. These two wines rolled out successfully last June and are now winding their way through the distribution network nationwide and they are due to hit the beverage departments of Cost Plus World Market stores in Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada this month. Here’s a review of the two wines I sampled:


Lander-Jenkins spirit hawk California Chardonnay:

Principally sourced from Monterrey county vineyards, this Chardonnay is accented with 3% Muscat Canelli. It is a blend of about 2/3rds stainless steel and 1/3rd French oak aged Chardonnay and comes in at about 13.5% alcohol, which is just on the moderately high side for a lighter style Chardonnay. This golden straw colored wine exhibited healthy legs, delicate aromas and definite notes of peach and apricot (probably from the balancing addition of the Muscat) There was a light creaminess in the mouth with robust acidity and just the lightest touch of oak and some mineral aftertaste on the moderate finish. Food and Wine Magazine named it one of their 12 best California Chardonnays under $15. The Wine Guy found it to be light and enjoyable but found myself wondering if it wasn’t trying to appeal to both ends of the chardonnay spectrum without offending the other. That said, it’s a good value and worth your exploration.

Lander-Jenkins spirit hawk California Cabernet Sauvignon:

This is a 92% Cabernet with the dominant portion coming from Paso Robles vineyards. There are light additions (all 3% or under) of Malbec, Merlot, Zinfandel and Petit Verdot. The alcohol is a respectable 13.5% and aging is for 14 months in French oak. This wine is moderately deep garnet in color. The fruity nose is accented with just a trace of mint. Exhibited tastes were dark fruits, principally blackberry and plum with just a light hint of spice. Tannins were moderate and the oak was subtly present and somewhat subdued. Despite the tendency to fruitiness, there was a nice lingering finish to this wine and it was, overall, an enjoyable Cabernet Sauvignon, especially if your preference is the more medium-bodied expressions of this grape.

As with their rollout last year, Lander-Jenkins introduction in the World Market stores will include an opportunity to mail in and receive some coordinating note stationery that includes imbedded seeds in the paper (a great tie-in and reminder of their commitment to sustainable viniculture). Once the notepad is used, the recipient simply plants the paper and will be rewarded with wildflowers. As gardening is my number two activity behind sipping wine, I can’t wait for the blooms.

Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay still rank one and two, respectively in U.S. wine consumption. If either is on your shopping list, you may want to try some Lander-Jenkins spirit hawk wine!