Aged twenty five year old St Jean Cinq Cepage

Aged twenty five year old St Jean Cinq Cepage Red Bordeaux Blend with meatloaf 

Linda prepared meatloaf with cooked carrots and mashed potatoes - one of my favorite ‘comfort food’ meals. 

I pulled from the cellar a vintage aged Bordeaux Blend from a legendary Sonoma Valley producer. 

I remember Cinq Cepages (Five Flavors or varieties) was one of our go-to California Bordeaux Blends that we felt had huge QPR - Quality Price Ratio, at about $25 or less. Then, the 1996 Chateau St. Jean Cinq Cépages was Wine Spectator’s Wine of the Year in 1999. James Laube wrote in Wine Spectator “A Happy Reunion With a Wine of the Year - Chateau St. Jean Cabernet Sauvignon Cinq Cépages 1996, in 2010, “With a 95-point rating, 11,000 cases made and a $28 price tag, it was one of the easier picks we’ve made over the years.” With 11,000 cases made, it was readily available and easy to obtain, yet, over-night the price escalated substantially, and didn’t recover for several years until the market ‘normalized’ and settled into the new price-point. I guess that is the case each year with the anointed #1. In any event, this remains a nice reasonably priced Bordeaux Blend based on Sonoma fruits. 

Later the 1999 vintage release went on to be named the Wine Spectator number two. The Chateau St Jean winemaker Margo Van Staaveren was also lauded as winemaker of the year by Wine Enthusiast Magazine in 2008. 

We hold a couple cases of this label spanning three decades. While this isn’t the oldest vintage held (that would be the 1994), I selected it hoping it to be a ‘Goldilocks’ bottle, not too old, (so as to be undrinkable, or past its drinking window, but not too young, so as to be sufficiently aged to have settled and allowed the blend to integrate). But, I was trying to consume some of the older vintages as part of cellar inventory management. In the end, it was past its prime drinking window, showing some diminution of the fruits from age, but still approachable, but time to drink up in the near term. 

We have visited the picturesque historic chateau, built in the 1920s by Ernest and Maude Goff, surrounded by vineyards in Kenwood, Sonoma Valley, several times over the years. It’s always a highlight of the Sonoma Valley producer sites. The original building was refurbished and listed in the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

We tasted and obtained the then current release of this label as part of a Reserve wine flight pairing at the Chateau St Jean estate during our Sonoma Napa Wine Experience back in 2017.  I featured that tasting in a blogpost in these pages at the time - July 30, 2017 - Chateau St Jean Sonoma Reserve Private Tasting. 

Our Pour Boys 2017 Sonoma Napa Wine Experience started on the Sonoma Coast and worked east along the Russian River Valley ending up in Sonoma Valley at one of its crown jewel estates, Chateau St Jean. 

The Chateau St Jean estate is one of the most picturesque and authentic in the Sonoma Valley and is more civil and hospitable than some of the garish ostentatious properties in the more highly commercialized Napa Valley. This was a perfect buffer and transition from the more relaxed Sonoma County to the Valley as we transitioned to spend the coming week in Napa (Valley).

Private tastings are held in the cottage across the courtyard from the hospitality center. 

We've visited the estate and done tastings there numerous other times over the years. Sonoma Harvest '09 - Chateau St Jean and again Sonoma Valley Wine Experience 2009 - Chateau St Jean, and that Chateau St Jean Sonoma Reserve Private Tasting back in 2017.  

Chateau St. Jean "Cinq Cépages" Sonoma County Cabernet Sauvignon 2001

This release was rated 93 points by Wine Enthusiast, 92 points by Wine Spectator and 17.5/20 points by Jancis Robinson (on her twenty point scale, which frankly I like better).  All these tastings and ratings were from 2004 to 2007, hence nearing two decades old. 

Winemaker Notes - “Cinq Cépages ("Five Varieties") is a Bordeaux-style blend consisting of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, and Petit Verdot. Each component is aged separately for two years in small French oak barrels before blending. Once the wine is assembled, it spends six months in the bottle before release.”

At twenty five years, the label and foil were pristine, the important fill level and cork were still ideal. The cork was still intact, firm and moist, and surrendered uniformly using a ‘Ahso’ two pronged cork puller (as shown in photo above). 

Garnet colored, medium bodied, complex concentrated dark berry, cherry and plum fruits, starting to give way to non fruit leather and smoke notes, still clinging to notes of oak, sweet herbs, cocoa and spice with approachable soft tannins on a lingering finish. 

RM 89 points, indicating diminished fruit at twenty five years. 

https://go.cellartracker.com/wine/33235

https://www.chateaustjean.com/