TASTING NOTES:
Release Date: Fall 2000
The two vineyards we farm for the “Old Vine Reserve” were planted by our founder some 43 years ago in the rocks and shale of Mount Eden. Because of the antiquity and the inherent struggle, the yields are so low as to be absurd and the character so profound as to be absurd. Generally speaking, the harder the vine works, the more it expresses its site. The more it expresses its site, the greater its individuality. This is not a “cookie cutter” valley floor Cabernet with all the plushness of your father’s Oldsmobile: no, this is a “true” mountain wine with the precision, depth, and acidity of your best friend’s Ducaté.
This is the last wine to be released from the phenomenal ’97 vintage. A winemaker’s dream, the weather was beautiful, ripening the late maturing Cabernet Sauvignon fully and evenly. Riper than the norm, flavors of cocoa, cassis, earth, and sweet French oak are seamless from front to back. This wine was aged a full two years in new Bordelaise chateau barrels. Before bottling gently, we lightly egg-white fined, using no filtration.
Tasting very forward at present, there is sufficient depth and structure for a thirty year span.
