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The Concept | The Lunch | Winemaker Interviews | Conclusions The Wines  Warm
greetings from all as I arrived at Robert
Sinskey Vineyards. I was chagrined to admit it was my first visit to
the property, and I had reason to be.
The sheer physical beauty of the setting, the tasteful stone and wood construction, the spacious tasting bar and friendly hospitality make this a “must visit” stop on the Silverado Trail. Rarely have I been so impressed with a first winery visit. Since I was a few minutes early, I was invited out on the ‘veranda’, where the settings for lunch had been prepared. The patios afforded sweeping views of the valley and the hillside planted vineyards. The architecture features native stonework and timber. After some pleasant chat, we moved into the cellar where long tables had been set, and portioned pours of the featured wines had been prepared. After some brief remarks from David Campbell, CEO of Clos du Val, we set about to some quiet and serious tasting. The notes from the wineries appear offset and in bold maroon, and my observations are below those notes.
Taken mainly from select hillside lots comprising a wide range of rootstocks, clonal selections and trellis systems, the 2000 Stags Leap District Cabernet is ripe, soft and approachable. The wine reveals generous black fruit laced with hints of tobacco, grilled herbs and Ceylon tea. While amply structured, the addition of 24% Merlot has created a wine that is smooth and silky. It is certainly ready to drink now and may be enjoyed over the next five years. In August 2002, 1532 cases were bottled.Ample, ripe, red cherry fruit and lovely herbal aromatics – velvety entry with mild and smooth tannins in the back of the midpalate – the flavors are a bit subdued, but the wine has a lovely texture, is well balanced and has excellent structure. Baldacci Family Vineyards 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon The 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon is Baldacci Family Vineyards' first release. The grapes were grown in their Stags Leap District estate vineyard and were carefully tended to produce this wine of exquisite complexity and character. The wine exhibits aromas and flavors of dried lavender, ripe cherry, blackberry and chocolate with slight hints of mint and cedar. This wine was aged in 100% new French Oak for approximately 21 months. The Cabernet Sauvignon's elegant structure was blended with 9% Cabernet Franc to enhance the velvety texture and supple tannins. The result is a powerful, yet accessible blend that displays the depth, richness, and finesse of a Stags Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon. Very shy aromatics – as are the flavors, showing only hints of darker cherries in the back of the palate – the structure seems quite adequate, but the wine is very coy right now, showing very little of what it has to offer. Chimney Rock Winery 2000 Stags Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve Winemaker: Douglas Fletcher Every year, Chimney Rock makes a Reserve from the best-tasting fruit from its estate vineyard, and every year, the selection is different. The 2000 Stags Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve is 95% Cabernet Sauvignon and 5% Petit Verdot. The inclusion of Petit Verdot from a hillside block of the vineyard is a first for the Chimney Rock Reserve, and the seldom seen variety adds a delightful mulberry aroma to the wine’s classic Stags Leap District Cabernet traits. This is a wine of great depth and concentration, and winemaker Doug Fletcher recommends some cellar aging, with the expectation that the wine will peak in 10 to 15 years. Rather shy fruits in the nose with hints of aquarium – shows medium weight plummy fruit in the mouth with dark undertones of licorice – very smooth and supple mouthfeel. Clos Du Val 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon, Stags Leap District, Oak Vineyard Winemakers: Bernard Portet, John Clews and Kian Tavakoli The 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon, Stags Leap District, Oak Vineyard comes from the vineyards beside Clos Du Val’s winery in the heart of the Stags Leap District. The wine has a dense, deep color with purple edges. The complex nose is weighty and layered with blackberries and black currants, which show a subtle herbaceous character that is very Cab like. Rich and fleshy in the entry, the wine builds up to a full bodied and ripe mid-palate. The wine’s velvety texture has layers of dark fruits all leading to a long, well-integrated finish, with silky tannins that envelop the wine beautifully. This wine has tremendous aging potential, as do all of Clos Du Val’s Stags Leap District wines. Subdued fruit and floral notes in the nose – central core of black current flavors with hints of spice – rather “focused” in style and far more “French” than the other samples.
Winemaker: Gary Galleron First in the nose, then on the palette, you are captivated by the ripe, sweet cherry and milk chocolate; ripe flavors of plums and black raspberries linger through to the finish with a touch of dark toasty oak. Exquisite beauty and finesse is captured in this elegantly styled wine blended with 10% Merlot and aged in French Oak for approximately 16 months. While ready to drink now, the wine will continue to age beautifully over the next several years. Enjoy! A little musty in the nose, although the sample in the setup next to mine was far less so – broadly flavored in the mouth with lovely texture – the tannins are very smooth in all areas of the palate – the wine is very pretty and has a long and clean follow. Pine Ridge Winery 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon Winemaker: Stacy Clark Pine Ridge estate vineyards in the Stags Leap District are densely planted and trained to produce lower yields with a greater concentration of flavors. The 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon is a supple Bordeaux style blend of 81% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Petit Verdot, 6% Malbec, and 5% Merlot. Following aging in new, heavily toasted French oak chateau-style barrels for 19 months, the wine was bottled without fining or filtration. The 2000 vintage was characterized by good set and yields, with a warm harvest. The wine from this vintage exhibits the classic black cherry/cassis aromas, rich texture and elegant tannins of the District. Green and herbal in the nose – moderate tannins do permit hints of bright cherry fruit to peek through – clean finish. Regusci Winery 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon Winemakers: Angelo Regusci and Charles Hendricks Apart from the immediate enjoyment of the berry, plum, vanilla toast aromas and the smooth, full mouth-feel upon tasting a bottle of the 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon, one needs to take a long-term perspective to examine wine. Knowledge of how the land, climate and grapes can be brought into accord with one another is a lifelong pursuit. The Regusci Family has been on the same land for four generations. History and experience are combined with the latest advances to produce wines of elegance, durability and sheer pleasure. Attractive purple plum aromas – very pretty, ripe and bright fruit flavors on the palate – the tannins are reasonably well controlled, but do show a bit in the front of the palate – the flavors provide a long and pleasant finish.
Winemakers: Timothy Mondavi, Managing Director and Winegrower, Robert Mondavi Seductive and silky, the Robert Mondavi Winery 2000 Stags Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon unfolds with cassis and black cherry flavors with nuances of licorice and violet. The grapes were selected from four vineyards that best exemplify the lush fruit flavors and silky tannins of the Napa Valley’s renowned Stags Leap District. The wine was gently handcrafted in the To-Kalon fermentation cellar, aged for 17 months in French oak chateau barrels, and bottled without filtration to capture the full flavor profile. Markedly herbal in the nose with a smack of green olive – in the mouth there is more herb than fruit – the tannins are moderate and a bit coarse, and it is fairly difficult to evaluate the wine at this point – not terribly impressive. Shafer Vineyards 1999 Hillside Select Cabernet Sauvignon Winemaker: Elias Fernandez The 1999 Hillside Select Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley, Stags Leap District is a wine of a place, produced each vintage from carefully selected blocks of the hillside vineyards surrounding the winery. These grapes are small and deeply colored, with concentrated flavors enhanced by meticulous winemaking and extensive aging in French oak barrels. Hillside Select consistently expresses the voluptuous fruit, rich flavors and velvety texture that characterize grapes grown in the Stags Leap District. The last vintage of the century was a memorable one, with a long, cool growing season and a made-to-order heat wave in September, which brought grape sugars into balance with acidity. The long growing season meant both early and later-ripening varieties ripened at the same time, making for a compact harvest of extremely healthy fruit. Very restrained aromatically – densely textured with rich and fairly deep and broad flavors that are pretty well restrained at this time – but this is a Hillside that will make Shafer fans smile...a lot. Silverado Vineyards 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon, Single Vineyard Selection Winemaker: Jon Emmerich On land that has supported viticulture since the 1880s, Silverado’s home vineyard is one of the three original Cabernet plantings in the District. The 2000 growing season was nearly perfect, except for a brief June heat wave and a trace of rain in September. Warm afternoons and cold nights led to a mild, compact harvest with normal yields. The 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon, Single Vineyard Selection is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon. It has intense aromas of olive and fresh cherry with moderate acidity, full body and plummy flavors with black pepper and sweet oak on the finish. 912 cases were produced. Very shy aromatics – bright cherry flavors peek through – it shows mostly structure now, and smooth, but pan-palate tannins at this point. Robert Sinskey Vineyards 1999 Stags Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon Winemaker: Jeff Virnig This 1999 Stags Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon is a beauty, but also a beast! It has an inviting aroma of cassis and stone fruit with a supporting note of vanilla. The tannins are apparent, yet they remain in check. Big, rich front-of-the-mouth presence is tempered by good, balanced acidity. The flavors dance across the palate with big plum-like notes followed by a touch of cedar and a finish of bittersweet chocolate. It is a wine that will show best in its youth when paired with simply prepared meat dishes, grilled steak or lamb chops seasoned with just salt and pepper. However, if you do choose to age this wine, you will be rewarded with a wine that will develop the subtlety and increased complexity to be served with a broader range of cuisine. Rather reticent aromatics with hints of Cabernet berry fruit shining through – the fruit is ripe and rich on the palate, but is outweighed by the slightly coarse tannins that take over in the midpalate and spread in all directions – I think the flavors and structure are there, but this wine needs time to calm down and integrate. Stags’ Leap Winery 2000 Estate Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon Winemaker: Robert Brittan Over the past 120 years, some parts of the volcanic vineyard of the Stags’ Leap Estate have developed vines of remarkable character and consistency. The 2000 Estate Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon is the result of the winemaker’s selections of the best fruit from these vineyards. The wine shows the essence of Stags’ Leap in complex herbal and fruit aromas and velvet-like texture. The 2000 vintage was a traditional Cabernet vintage in California: a warm growing season leading to a cool autumn. This produced wines that are rich and full-bodied. Red cherry and raspberry jam dominate the flavors, and the wine possesses an elegant structure leading to a long supple finish. Very shy in the nose – hints of fruit in the mouth, but at this point shows mostly structure and tannin – judgement reserved. Steltzner Vineyards 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon Winemaker: Charles Hendricks The 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon is 100% Estate grown from vineyards in the heart of the Stags Leap District. This vintage expresses opulent aromas of rich, red berries and smoky hazelnuts, a hint of cocoa, sweet toasty oak and delicate floral notes. It displays brilliant ruby color reflective of the Stags Leap District. Tantalizing flavors of cherry and blackberry glide across the palate with a silky, smooth finish. Smells like barrel, not oak, but barrel – shows sweet black cherry and plum flavors in the mouth wrapped in a nicely structured package.
My favorite quote was one attributed to Doug Shafer: “Our wines are rock soft.”
© Allan Bree July 2003
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