Château Boswell Napa Valley Estate Reserve Red Wine 2016

Château  Boswell Napa Valley Estate Reserve Red Wine 2016

As stated in our posting of our gala wine dinner the other night, we opened this ultra premium label, brought by Dr Dan from his cellar. He brought this in recognition of the destruction of Château Boswell in the ravaging Glass Wildfire that swept above Napa Valley just last week.

Château Boswell dates back forty years, when Richard Thornton Boswell founded a Napa Valley winery with the goal of excellence in small lot French Style wine production with wines sold directly to the client. At that time, The Wall Street Journal remarked upon his unique concept of a "Boutique" winery at a time when the other 71 wineries in the Napa Valley sold mostly through distribution. Today, Château Boswell remains among a handful of privately owned family wineries amidst the 554 wineries in the Napa Valley.

Château Boswell was founded in 1979 along the Napa Valley's Silverado Trail, under the guidance of Napa's foremost oenological consultant of the era, Andre Tschelistcheff. Their stated goal was to 'capture California’s purest representation of terroir from storied vineyards, Napa Valley’s Beckstoffer To Kalon Vineyard, Northern Santa Barbara’s spectacular Rita’s Crown, Radian and Bentrock Vineyards, Sonoma Coast's Sun Chase Vineyard, and from the Russian River Valley, Ritchie, Rued, and Dutton Sebastopol Vineyard designated Chardonnays.' Surprisingly, Boswell doesn't attract too much attention, given the pedigree of their vineyard sources and the quality of the winemaking. 

Boswell's initial vision was to focus solely on the noble Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon varietal in his stone winery sitting on the hill side along the Silverado Trail in Saint Helena. That vision and the resulting wine portfolio has expanded and become vastly diversified to include wines from many of California’s most treasured vineyards. Today, the Boswell family, under the direction of Susan Boswell, continues that mission, to craft the finest wines with the greatest expression of terroir.

Building upon the vision and tradecraft of famed winemaker André Tchelistcheff who helped launch the original winery with his immense knowledge and tradition, Boswell builds on that legacy and history in their continued quest for excellence lead by a current era legendary winemaker, Philippe Melka assisted by Associate Winemaker Allison Nunnikhoven. 

Of course we know and enjoy Phillipe Melka wines from his own private label, as well as his participation as a contributing winemaker to the Long Shadows Vintners Series, where nine of the world's leading winemakers crafting world class wines from Washington State Columbia Valley fruits.

Melka started at the top: his first job out of school was at the legendary first growth Bordeaux Château Haut Brion. From there, he took a position with the reputable Moueix Company and was sent to Dominus Estate in California Napa Valley Yountville to study soils in 1991. He returned to France in 1993 to deepen his expertise at Château Petrus. 

Melka has been fortunate to have been trained and influenced by some of the most notable personalities in the wine business such as Jean Delmas and Jean Philippe Masclef from Haut-Brion, Christian Moueix and Jean Claude Berrouet from Petrus, Paul Draper from Ridge, Daniel Baron from Silver Oak and the globetrotting wine consultant Michel Rolland with whom he continues to work with on consulting projects. Michel Rolland is also a consulting winemaker along with Melka in the Long Shadows Collector Series Project. (We were fortunate enough to recently acquire some of Rolland's MR Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon for our cellar collection which we will look forward to experiencing when a suitable occasion warrants). 

He returned to Napa Valley in 1994 and founded Atelier Melka in 1995. Since then he has served as winemaking consultant for some of Napa’s most highly regarded properties including Boswell as well as Hundred Acre, Quintessa, Bryant Family, Seavey, Dana Estates and Vineyard 29. Robert Parker named Philippe Melka, one of the top nine winemakers in the world.

Château Boswell produces 5 wines from the Napa Valley; our Estate Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc blend, Beckstoffer To Kalon Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, RTB Red wine which is a blend of Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon, At Anchor Cabernet Sauvignon, and tonight's featured wine, Boswell Napa Valley Red Wine, which is a blend of fruit sourced from 3 Cabernet Sauvignon vineyards, and a touch of Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Merlot.

As I mentioned above, at our gala wine dinner the other night, we opened this ultra premium label, brought by Dr Dan from his cellar, in recognition of the destruction of Château Boswell in the ravaging Glass Wildfire that swept above Napa Valley just last week. 

Ideally, we would hold this wine for at least and perhaps a dozen years before opening. Never-the-less, it was spectacular. Had this been opened, decanted and allowed to settle for a couple hours before tasting, it would've no doubt vied for WOTN - Wine of the Night.

Jed Dunnuck gave this 96+ points yet called it 'backward', but went on to say this is a 'serious red that has lots of blackcurrant fruit as well as terrific intensity in its tobacco, leafy herbs, graphite, and lead pencil aromas and flavors. Possessing full-bodied richness, and building tannins, it holds onto a beautiful sense of elegance and balance.'

It was aged 18 months in 70% new barrels. 

On opening this was tight and restrained. Only on follow on tasting two days later did this reveal its potential of what is to come, polished, elegance, a symphony of flavors. Dark purple color, medium-full bodied, soft sensuous black and blue fruits with well behaved silky tannins offering nicely integrated and balanced notes of tobacco, hints of sweet mocha, spice and herbs. 

RM 95 points.  

https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=2819783

http://www.chateauboswellwinery.com/ 

Château Haut-Batailley Pauillac Bordeaux 2003

Château Haut-Batailley Pauillac Bordeaux 2003

Wine buddy and fellow Pour Boy Bill brought this Grand Cru Classe Bordeaux from his cellar in South Carolina for a wine dinner following our extraordinary dinner and wine flight last evening. This was a great comparison tasting opposite the just released 2018 vintage of Caymus Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.

Château Haut-Batailley is another property of the legendary Borie family, one of the oldest wine producing families in Bordeaux who also own Château Ducru-Beaucaillou. Our visit to the Borie family owned classic second growth Ducru-Beaucaillou estate was one of the highlights of our trip to the Medoc last year. 

Bill brought this label to another wine dinner tasting we held three years ago. At that time I wrote that this wine as probably at the apex of its drinking window, not likely to improve further with aging. While that may be the case, it certainly is holding its own and showed very well again tonight, perhaps better than our earlier tasting, exceeding my expectations for what I was expecting from this label and vintage release. 

Bill's Cellartracker notes from the earlier tasting summed it up well - "Medium garnet with a slight touch of brown at the edges. Earthy nose with the slightest hint of lilac. A bit tight upon opening but within 20 minutes, began to reveal cassis, dark chocolate, a bit of moss and just a hint of mint."

Like our earlier tasting experience, this opened with wonderful Bordeaux aromas of earthy leather, dark fruits and floral but was firm and tight with a moderate gripping tannin backbone - yet smooth and polished rather than overbearing. We set it aside and let it open and breath for a bit which it did so very nicely over the course of the evening. It showed equally well if not better the next evening as we enjoyed the remains of the bottle.

Dark garnet colored, medium full bodied, complex black fruits with tones of cassis, floral, earthy leather, tobacco and oak, hints of spice and graphite with smooth polished dusty tannins on the lingering finish.

RM 91 points.

https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=61279

https://unwindwine.blogspot.com/2017/02/freemark-abbey-cuvaison-haut-batailley.html

Caymus 2018 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvigon

 Caymus 2018 - Haut Batailley 2003

Following our extraordinary dinner and wine flight last evening, we had a follow on dinner of sliced beef left over from the tomahawk ribeyes. We opened the just released 2018 Caymus Napa Cabernet alongside a Château Haut-Batailley Pauillac Bordeaux 2003 for a comparison tasting. 

Caymus 2018 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvigon

I have written in these pages often about the allure of Caymus Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. Caymus has a signature style that is dark in color, with rich fruit and ripe, velvety tannins. It is known to be consistently approachable in youth for early gratification as well as being ageworthy to enjoy in maturity. Caymus do an incredible job crafting an elegant sophisticated wine year after year, in large quantities. 

Caymus sources grapes for their benchmark label from eight of Napa’s 16 sub-appellations. They note that this diversification enables them to make the best possible wine in a given year. Caymus Cabernet is known for complex layers, lush aromas and flavors, including cocoa, cassis and ripe dark berries. The Caymus style and consistency is achieved through rigorous disciplined viticulture practices such as crop thinning, which allows measured sunlight to reach the vine’s fruit zone, and extended ‘hang time’ whereby the fruit is left on the vine for an unusually long period to develop flavors and aromas.

This 2018 release is classic Caymus and lives up to its reputation as noted above. This is the 46th vintage of Caymus Cabernet, which happens to coincide with the number of years we've been married. Back in 2014 on our shared fortieth anniversary, they changed their packaging and labeling to include the anniversary year on the top of the foil capsule. Ever since, Caymus is a favorite go-to wine for our personal celebrations.   

The name ‘Caymus’ originates from the Mexican land grant named Ranchos Caymus, given to George Yount in 1836 to encompass what would become the town of Rutherford and surrounding areas.

We visited the Caymus Estate in Rutherford in the heart of Napa Valley, during our Napa Wine Experience in 2018. The 100% family owned Caymus was founded in 1971 by Charlie Wagner, his wife Lorna Belle Glos Wagner, and son Chuck. The winery was constructed among the vines planted on the family’s Rutherford ranch vineyard. Their first vintage in 1972 produced a modest 240 cases of wine. Forty years later, Caymus farms Cabernet grapes in eight of Napa’s 16 sub-appellations to ensure the pick of the year’s fruit and produces an incredible 65,000 cases for distribution around the world.

The 2018 vintage is no exception. In typical Caymus style, this Cabernet is deep mulberry in colour with aromas of blackberry jam, cassis, currant and cocoa. Straight out of the gates it delivers a hefty punch of fruit to the palate followed by tantalizing notes of anise, cocoa, cherry vanilla, tobacco and a hint of pepper. While abundant in tannins it retains a softness that guarantees a silky mouthfeel and sultry finish.

This release is darker, bigger, firmer and richer than I remember from older past vintages. This was dark garnet colored, full bodied, rich concentrated and firmly structured super-ripe blackberry and black raspberry fruits are complex with notes of cola, cassis, with hints of vibrant cinnamon and clove spices, mocha and vanilla, turning to firm gripping tannins on the long finish. It need several years to integrate and settle more gracefully.

RM 93 points.  

https://www.cellartracker.com/barcode.asp?iWine=3456558

http://www.caymus.com/

@caymuscab 

Broad diverse flight of big reds highlight tomahawk beefsteak dinner

Broad diverse flight of big reds highlight tomahawk beefsteak dinner

A reunion of the Pour Boys wine group, me, Dr. Dan and Bill C provided an occasion for a broad diverse flight of big reds to accompany a beefsteak dinner featuring spectacular tomahawk rib-eye steaks. Linda prepared a magnificent dinner that also included medallion lobster tails, haricort verts, fingerling potatoes and cauliflower. 

 

Prior to dinner we had an extensive selection of artisan cheeses and then a ceasar salad. With the cheese course, we drank Pol Roger Reserve NV Champagne and then I opened a Château Climens Barsac from son Alec's birthyear vintage 1990. 

 

The cheese flight included:

Murray's Delice de Borgogne

Murray's Camembert

Fairlane Farms 12 year old aged cheddar

Fairlane Farms Havarti Pepper

Old Amsterdam Aged Smoked Gouda

Bayley Hazen Blue

Woolwich Dairy Triple Creme Goat Cheese

The tomahawk rib-eye beefsteaks ...

The big red wine flight was broad and diverse featuring wines from around the globe spanning three decades of vintage releases including several from son Alec's birthyear vintage 1990 that we served or hoped to serve at his recent wedding, to current recent releases. 

The flight featured producers that we have all visited together during our wine country tours such as Château St Jean, and also provided a tribute to the super second Château Leoville Las Cases that was a highlight of our trip to St Julien Bordeaux last year. Lastly, we recognized a couple of our favorite Napa Valley producers that we have visited together, Château Boswell and Fantesca who were affected by the ravages of the recent catastrophic fires there. 

Pol Roger Reserve NV Champagne

Château Climens Barsac 1990

Château  St Jean Cinq Cépages 2004

Fantesca Spring Mountain District Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2004

Château  Boswell Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2016
I review this wine in an encore tasting in this blogpost.

Château  Leoville Las Cases St Julien Bordeaux 1990

Freemark Abbey Napa Valley Bosche Vineyard 1992

Galerie Pleinaire Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2015

Clarendon Hills Astralis Clarendon Syrah 2009 

Warres Quinta da Cavadihna Vintage Port 1990

After dinner Linda served a medley of deserts with fresh berries. With the dessert flight we served another 1990 vintage release wine, Warres Quinta da Cavadihna Vintage Port 1990.

Galerie Pleinair Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2015

Galerie Pleinair Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2015

This is my first introduction to this label that I found at the local Sav-Way wine shop in Hinsdale. The unique name, Pleinair refers to the French painters' method of painting outdoors (en plein air), which developed around the same time as Napa's first European-style vineyards in the 1800s. 

According to the producer, Galerie wines are "portraits of place or terroir,' crafted to represent the dramatically different features of Northern California’s most prized winegrowing appellations. They source fruit for their portolio of wines from Napa Valley and Knights Valley up in Sonoma County. Napa, of course, is known for its abundant sunshine and rich, fruit-forward wines, while Knights Valley at the base of Mt. St. Helena to the north, has even cooler temperatures, and volcanic soils that produce slower-ripening fruit with distinctive minerality. 

Galerie's winemaker for Pleinaire is Gianna Kelly a native of Sonoma County, where she was introduced to wine at an early age watching her father manage wine list selections for their family restaurant. After graduating from Santa Clara University with a degree in Chemistry, she initially pursued a career in research with IBM. As she says, she quickly found that polymers weren’t as alluring as vineyards, and redirected her chemistry skills to the wine industry as a chemist for Enologix in her hometown of Sonoma. She landed a post as enologist at Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars where she fell in love with Bordeaux varieties and honed her winemaking skills by working with Cabernet Sauvignon. She then served as assistant winemaker for St. Francis Winery, working with a wide variety of vineyard sources.

In 2018, Gianna joined the team at Cardinale as an assistant winemaker and in 2019, she became head winemaker for Galerie wines.

The fruit for this vintage release of label is from four different vineyards from four different in AVA's (Agriculture Viticulture Areas, also known as appellations) in Napa Valley. The producer exclaims, 'sourcing the fruit from vineyards with diverse soil types brings complexity and depth to the finished wine, which shows rich black fruit, spice and floral notes with a firm tannin structure and balanced acidity.'

 

“Making Galerie wines gives me the chance to unite my passion for Bordeaux varieties with my curiosity for the way different vineyard sites express their own unique personalities,” says Gianna. “I enjoy the challenge of developing each small vineyard lot in the cellar and then choosing from a satisfying number of options when it comes time to blend. This helps me create balanced wines that showcase the delightful distinctions between two exceptional wine regions.” 

 

Contrary to the claims of the producer, I would argue that blending fruit from several disparate diverse sources may provide complexity, it obscures and negates the sense of terroir or place in the wine, especially if and as they vary from vintage to vintage. 

The four vineyard sources are:

The Yverdon Vineyard is on from the Spring Mountain AVA, perched high on the steeply terraced slopes of the Mayacamas Mountains along the western edge of Napa Valley. There the marine layer of fog and breezes that waft up from San Pablo Bay bring cooler days and warmer nights than on the valley floor. Its clay loam & volcanic loam soils introduces acidity and juicy-honey flavors & black fruit and floral notes into the wine. 

The Van Z Vineyard in the Saint Helena AVA has sedimentary, gravel-clay soils that are dry farmed to balance the tannin structure.

The highly acclaimed Stage Coach Vineyard from the Atlas Peak AVA has red volcanic soils in the Vaca Mountain Range on the Eastern Slope of Napa Valley that inputs bone and mineral spice into the wine. 

 

Lastly, the Red Hen Vineyard in the lower southwestern valley Yountville AVA has sedimentary and alluvial soils that impart acidity and brightness. 

 

Galerie Pleinair Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2015

This label received 92 points from Robert Parker's Wine Advocate and 91 points from Decanter.

 

Dark garnet colored, full bodied, super ripe rich concentrated raisiny prune-like blackberry, black cherry and ripe plum fruits with baking spices, olive tapenade, black tea and herbs with a narrow moderate tannin finish.

 

RM 89 points. 

 

https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=2977658

https://www.galeriewines.com/pleinair-cabernet-sauvignon-napa-valley

 

Dunn Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 1990

Dunn Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 1990

With the kids on their honeymoon in Napa Valley, we're still basking in the glow of a spectacular wine weekend celebrating son Alec and daughter-in-law Vivianna's wedding. Continuing the flight of birthyear vintage wines served at the wedding, we opened another 1990 vintage Napa Cab for a grilled steak dinner and butternut squash dinner. We hold nearly three dozen bottles of a total of thirty vintages of Dunn Vineyards cabernet sauvignons, between their two labels, Napa Valley and Howell Mtn, going back four decades. 

Small selection of our extensive
Dunn Vineyards Cabernet collection

With the wildfires ravaging Napa Valley and Howell Mountain, we're remembering our visit to the Dunn Vineyards estate high atop Howell Mountain where we met the legendary Randy Dunn and daughter Kristina who hosted us as hospitality director at the time.

We wishing the Dunns the best of hope they're not too severely affected by the horrific fires. Indeed, all but a couple of the kid's special estate wine tours and tastings at the wineries this week were canceled in light of the fires. 

Dunn Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 1990  

This wine got 93 points from Robert Parker's Wine Advocate, and 92 points Wine Spectator and a Wine Spectator "Cellar Selection". 

At thirty years of age, the label, fill level and cork were nearly perfect, further testament to the suitability of our wine cellar for long term aging, and to the 1990 vintage. 

The moment I extracted the cork with an ahso, two pronged wine puller, full flavorful aromatics burst from the bottle. 

Dark garnet colored, medium full bodied, bright, concentrated, dense ripe black berry and black currant fruits are accented by notes of floral perfume, tobacco leaf, black olive tapenade and cigar box, turning to firm tangy tannins and notes of cedar on an extended lengthy aromatic finish.  

RM 92 points. 

https://www.cellartracker.com/barcode.asp?iWine=490&searchId=68049

https://unwindwine.blogspot.com/2020/09/dunn-vineyards-napa-valley-cabernet.html

http://www.dunnvineyards.com/

Lewis Cellars Ethan's Blend Syrah 2014

Lewis Cellars Ethan's Blend Syrah 2014

For mid-week sipping with some hearty cheeses, we opened this 100% Syrah from one of our favored producers, Lewis, known for Cabernets and another big bold blend, Alec's Blend.

We featured a vertical tasting of another Lewis label, Alec's Blend, a family signature wine for our son Alec, at his wedding celebration last week. Like Alec's Blend, this Ethan's Blend is named for one of the Lewis grandsons. We feature a lot of Lewis wines in these pages from our collection that goes back three decades. 

Our visit and private tasting at the Lewis Cellars chateau was one of the highlights of our Napa Valley Wine Experience in 2015.  Alec and new bride Vivianna were scheduled to visit Lewis during their Napa Valley honeymoon this week but their trip is bring severely disrupted and is day to day due to the Glass Fire ravaging the Napa region.

Lewis Cellars Ethan's Blend Syrah 2014

This 100% Syrah is crafted from small lots of Mt. Veeder and Pritchard Hill mountain fruits resulting in a big bold thick concentrated style that we love in a Syrah. 

This wine got 94 points from Wine Spectator.  One reviewer describes it as "minerals, charred meat, scorched earth, vanilla, violets and dark chocolate."

Dark inky purple colored, full bodied, thick concentrated, firmly structured, not for the feint of heart, ripe black berry and ripe plum fruits are accented by a layer of spice, smoke, bittersweet dark chocolate, hints of licorice and creosote on a full firm tannin laced finish. 

RM 92 points. 

https://www.lewiscellars.com/

https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=2436973 

Wedding Wines - Birthyear and Big Bottle Extravaganza Continues

Wines for a Wedding Celebration - Birthyear and Big Bottle Extravaganza Continues with Quivira Cabernet Cuvee' Imperial, Pahlmayer and Pieper Heidseick Magnums - and Top Rated Birthyear Vintage Wines

The family gathered in Conneticut for son Alec and Vivianna's gala wedding weekend; we started off the festivities with a dinner with the wedding party, generously hosted by the B's, our new in-laws. 

The Big Green Truck with its on-board Pizza oven was on-site and prepared a broad selection of custom hand-made pizzas made with the finest ingredients and toppings. 

It was a perfect food-wine pairing with the California Cabernet Cuvee' Bordeaux Blend from Alec’s birthyear vintage, served from a 6 liter large format Imperial bottle I brought from our cellar collection for the occasion, as well as several other wines served.

As I presented the big bottle, I discussed the irony of it being one of our 'V' wines, this one also featuring a boat on the gold painted bottle, in light of the fact that I acquired this bottle decades ago in anticipation of this event. 

Frank B, father of the bride is an avid boater and the wedding party men spent the afternoon on his boat cruising the Westport and Southport Conneticut coast of Long Island Sound (below).

The special limited release commemorative bottle was signed by Quivira Vineyards and Winery founders and then owners, Henry and Holly Wendt. It came packaged in its own OWC, Original Wood Case. 

 

Quivira Vineyards has a long history of significance in the evolution of grape growing and winemaking in Dry Creek Valley. 

 

Founders Henry and Holly Wendt sold the property in 2006 to current owners Pete and Terri Knight. They were struck by Henry’s vision for better wine through innovative vineyard management using biodynamic and organic farming techniques. 

 

Since purchasing the winery and vineyards in the summer of 2006, Pete and Terri rallied the Quivira team around a strong sense of purpose and focus on a ‘sustainable, holistic approach’ to growing grapes in the quest of producing distinctive wines. 

 

Today, Quivira’s philosophy is driven by the mission and vision of quality shared between winemaker Hugh Chappelle and owners, Pete and Terri Knight. Together, they have invested in the vineyards and winery with the intent of growing wines based upon the ‘thoughtful commitment to sustainable and organic farming’. 

 

Quivira Vineyards, today, is a leading producer of terroir driven Zinfandel, Sauvignon Blanc, and Rhone varietals.

Quivira Dry Creek Cabernet Cuvee' 1990

This 1990 Cabernet Cuvee' was sourced from select grapes from the Quivira estate vineyards in Dry Creek Valley at the confluence of Wine Creek and Dry Creek in Healdsburg, Sonoma County. It is a blend of Bordeaux varietals, 61% Cabernet Sauvignon, 18% Cabernet Franc and 21% Merlot. Cellartracker records show this label was produced in the years 1987 through 1992.  

 

I've written in these pages about the impact a large format bottle has on the aging of wine, extending the life and drinking window of a wine due to the larger vessel and its reduced air to wine surface area and greater volume for increased stability for more graceful and consistent aging. 

 

This wine exceeded my expectations with its drinkability, still showing vibrant fruits and showing little sign of diminution from aging. This is most certainly attributable to the large bottle and to the quality of the 1990 vintage harvest. 

 

Sons Alec and Ryan, the groom and co-best man, carefully removed the wax capsule seal and extracted the cork, in near perfect condition, using a Ahso, two pronged cork puller. Shown below with our host, father of the bride, Frank B, and the boys, the 6 liter Quivira.

Thus was dark inky purple garnet colored, medium-full bodied with vibrant black berry fruits accented by notes of mushroom, smoke, oak and hints of black tea and cassis with a nice smooth integrated tannin laced finish. 

RM 89 points. 

https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=606516

https://quivirawine.com/

https://twitter.com/QuiviraVineyard

The wines continued the following evening for the wedding banquet served in a magnificent setting on the lawn under the tent in the yard overlooking the Sound. 

 

Following the Quivira, we opened another large format bottle, a magnum of Pahlmeyer Napa Valley Caldwell Vineyard Red Blend, also from the same birthyear vintage year 1990.  

Pahlmeyer Proprietary Red is a classic Napa Valley Bordeaux Blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Malbec, all sourced from the Estate Caldwell Vineyard. 

 

I wrote about this wine when I served a companion magnum of this bottle and label during a family gathering earlier this summer, the week of the original planned wedding event before being postponed due to the Covid Pandemic. 

To round out the flight of wines for the evening, Alec served his namesake signature wine, Alec’s Blend Napa Valley Red Wine from Lewis Cellars. This is another family favorite label from a favorite producer, featured often in these pages.

Son/brother Ryan gifted six bottles of recent releases of this label to Alec, and I swapped them with a vertical tasting flight from our cellar from the ‘99, ‘01, ‘03, ‘05, ‘07 and 2009 vintages. These were served alongside the current 2017 release. 

 

Following the wedding weekend, the bride and groom headed off to Napa to pay homage to the vines and visit several family favorite producers including Lewis, Del Dotto and several others, firestorm permitting. Alec and Vivianna have a planned visit to the Lewis Cellars Winery in Napa on their re-planned Honeymoon to Napa Valley.  

 

We also served for the weekend another bold vibrant proprietary red blend from Venge Cellars. Venge Scout’s Honor features a prominent ‘V’ on the label, a fun whimsical play on the initials for the bride Vivianna and a testament to the vineyard dog Scout of the Venge family, and a tribute to Alec and Vivianna’s new dog, Camella. 

  

Venge is another popular label and a family favorite. We have known and collected wines crafted by Nils Venge, the first California producer to craft a 100 point wine from the pundits, since his early days as a producer, and when he was consulting winemaker to several popular labels including Plumpjack, Del Dotto, Fantesca and others. 

Following the wedding ceremony, Frank and Mary-lisa, Vivianna's parents, hosted a magnificent gala celebration dinner in a tent on the lawn at their home overlooking Sherwood Island and Cob Cove on the Long Island Sound. 

 

The spectacular dinner featured prime filets of beefsteak and salmon entrees. This was a much abbreviated scaled down celebration from the originally intended and planned banquet at their club, which will now be rescheduled for another time. 

 

To contribute and join in the celebration dinner, I brought from our cellar a flight of very special wines I have collected over the decades and held for this occasion, from the birthyear vintages of the bride and the groom.

 

Three of the wines were each awarded #1 Wine of the Year by Wine Spectator Magazine as part of their annual Top 100 Wines of the Year, all from the 1990 vintage. A testament to the global success of the vintage, one was from California, one from Bordeaux and one from South Australia, a further testament to the amazing spectacular 1990 vintage. 

 

All these wines were acquired upon their release back in the early nineties, in some cases, even before being so recognized and heralded. 

 

Three #1 Wine Spectator Top
100 Wines from 1990 vintage

I blogged about these wines and big bottles in a preview to this weekend's gala festivities. 

Chateau Grand Vin Latour Pauillac Bordeaux 1990 

This 1990 vintage release was the Wine Spectator Top 100 #1 Wine of the Year for 1993 and was awarded a perfect 100 points. We also served this wine from a six liter Imperial from daughter Erin's 1981 birthyear vintage, at her and son-in-law Johnny's wedding celebration.

Erin, Johnny and Fort family
at Sean & Michelle's wedding

Penfold’s Grange (Hermitage) McLaren Vale Shiraz 1990

This 1990 vintage release of this label was the Wine Spectator Top 100 #1 Wine of the Year for 1995. This was the concensus WOTN - Wine of the Night by many in the group, especially the younger generation. I acquired an OWC - Original Wood Case of his wine back on release. I remember obtaining it at Berry Brothers and Rudd in London and hand carrying back on the flight, back in the days when such activity was allowed. 

 

We opened a bottle from this case with Alec and Vivianna when we visited them in New York to celebrate their engagement.   

 

My notes from that previous tasting earlier: Dark garnet colored, medium-full bodied, flawless, elegant, polished, harmonious, perfectly balanced, silky smooth flavors of concentrated black berry and black raspberry fruits with notes of vanilla, licorice, spice, black truffles and oak with hints of spice and cedar turning to fine grained tongue puckering tannins on the long lingering finish.

RM 96 points.

Caymus Special Select Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 1990 and 1991

This 1990 vintage release was Wine Spectator Top 100 #1 Wine of the Year for 1994. The 1990 vintage was so successful that nine of the Top Ten Wines of the Year in 1994 were from the 1990 vintage.  

To further celebrate the nuptials, I also brought several wines that we happen to hold in our cellar from the birthyear vintage of the bride including the Caymus Special Select 1991, in addition to the heralded #1 1990 vintage. Testament to this producer and their run of great releases, the 1991 was awarded the #2 wine of the Top 100 Wine Spectator Wines of the Year 1995. So, this mini-vertical duo of back to back vintages were #1 and #2 respectively in the Top 100, likely the first and only time that I can find that this has happened. 

  

 

 

I also brought back-to-back '90 and '91 vintages of Silver Oak Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon. Had the Coronavirus pandemic not derailed the couple’s original wedding plans, I was prepared to serve Silver Oak Bonny’s Vineyard Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 1990 from six liter bottles, (serial numbers 41 and 44). They remain stored in our cellar in their OWC - Original Wood Cases (shown below). We will hold these for (a) future celebration occasion (s). 

 

We served the 1982 vintage of Bonny's Vineyard from son Ryan's birthyear vintage at his and daughter-in-law Michelle's (below) wedding celebration, along with a horizontal collection of other birthyear vintage wines, several from large format bottles. 

 

 

We also served 1990 and '91 vintage Flora Springs Trilogy Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. 

 

We also brought along and were prepared to open but didn't get to them, bottles of Dunn Vineyards Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, 1990 and 1991. 

 

In all of these comparison tastings, the 1990 vintage showed significantly better than its 1991 counterpart, evidence that vintages matter. I've written in these pages that often, off-year vintages can out-perform, and, that in top exceptional years, all boats rise with the tide, and second and lesser labels can also be exceptional, often providing great QPR (quality price ratio) values. Tonight, though, we were fortunate enough to serve and partake of the best of the best - best wines of the best vintages!

 

We are still holding and looking forward to opening from our cellar collection birthyear vintage bottles of our kids and our anniversary years from our horizontal and vertical collections of several favorite Bordeaux producers including Chateaux Leoville Las Cases, Ducru Beaucaillou, Palmer, Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande, Gruaud Larose, Chateau d'Yquem and a few others. We're still holding many of these as they appear to have longer drinking windows and hence can be held a bit longer. We visited several of these Chateaux during our Bordeaux region trip last year. We'll look forward to featuring them in future family celebration tastings.  

 

Author, Rick & Linda,
groom's parents

After dinner, with the wedding cake, we served from our cellar Chateau Lafaurie Peyraguay and Chateau Suideraut Grand Cru 1990. We're fortunate to hold some Chateau d'Yquem 1990 as well, but will hold this for appropriate celebrations in the future due to its extraordinary long aging and drinking window. We were also prepared to open and will also hold for future events a Warre's and a Dow’s Quinta de Cavadhina Ports from 1990.

 

 

Prior to dinner, and throughout the evening, we served large format magnum bottles of Pieper Heidseick Special Edition Champagne (above). 

Lastly and notably, this follows by just three weeks the wedding celebration and serving of other large format and birthyear wines at son Sean's and daughter-in-law Michelle's wedding earlier this month. 

Michelle and Sean, newlyweds of
three weeks at A-V's wedding

 

Birthyear vintage labels and large format bottles

Gala wedding celebrations to feature special birthyear vintage labels and large format bottles and more ...

For son Alec and Vivianna's wedding celebrations, I assembled from our cellar a collection of birthyear vintage wines including several in large format bottles. I've written often in these pages about our collection of birthyear vintage wines for our kids, and our collection of large format bottles of special labels for special occasions. This, our final child's wedding is our last perfect storm to showcase and enjoy our wine cellar selections, one we've been preparing for for literally three decades. Indeed, our collection of 1990 vintage bottles of wine spans no less than 195 bottles from 65 different labels. 

A complication or added dimension to this whole concept and philosophy is that the bride is from a different vintage/birthyear. Hence, if we add the 1991 vintage to the inventory search of our cellar collection, we add another 42 bottles from 16 different labels. Of course, we did not anticipate and plan for this in our collecting over the decades, it just happens that we have these in our collection. 

So, for the festivities, there are numerous story lines, themes and approaches to how we will serve these wines. Non super wine geeks may tune out at this point and move on to the next blogpost. 

Birthyear / vintage highlights: I've written in these pages about the vintages of the birthyears of our kids, and how the 1990 vintage, birthyear of son Alec was extraordinary, one of the best of the century and perhaps in history. Not only were there three Wine Spectator Top 100 #1 wines from this vintage, three years in a row, but they hailed from three different disparate regions of the Old and New world, France, US Napa Valley, and Australia. All three were spectacular wines from ultra-premium absolute premier legendary labels:

Chateau Grand Vin Latour Pauillac Bordeaux 1990 - Wine Spectator Top 100 #1 Wine of the Year for 1993

Moreover, for this vintage, nine of the Top Ten Wines of the year were from the 1990 vintage. 

Caymus Special Select Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvigon 1990 - Wine Spectator Top 100 #1 Wine of the Year for 1994

Penfold's Grange (Hermitage) Shiraz 1990 - Wine Spectator Top 100 #1 Wine of the Year for 1995

So, if you had a child born in 1990 and wanted to collect special birth year wines to enjoy sometime in the future, it was easy to do, or hard to go wrong.  We got lucky and were blessed in so many respects, this being but another one. We'll have the luxury of tasting each of these wines this weekend. Watch for our tasting experiences.

The second dimension, the bride/groom's birthyear. In our case, our son's fiance, Vivianna was born a year later, in the following year, the next vintage, so to speak. Here I got lucky, I already had picked up the Caymus Special Select 1990 and 1991. The #2 wine in 1995 was, alas, Caymus Special Select 1991. That turns out to be the premier finest label selection from the vintage, during this era. Bingo! The other 1991 vintage labels from this period in the top tens were FLORA SPRINGS Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Reserve 1991 and CROFT Vintage Port 1991. I happened to have also picked up the Flora Springs Napa Cab 1990 and 1991 over the years, so we have another perfect pairing for the betrothed couple. And we'll serve vintage ports collected from the vintage as well.  

Watch this space as we open and enjoy these vintage select special bottles as part of our celebrations. 

The next dimension of our celebrations is large format bottles. We have a collection of large format bottles from the vintage that we'll serve this weekend, and on special occasions in the future. This includes four six liter Imperials, and numerous Magnums of select wines. Watch for these as they are presented and served as part of our family and friends celebrations.  

Lastly, as you have seen in these pages, we have fun with various labels and producers based on numerous criteria. One example is namesake labels, wines sharing names of our family or friends. One of our favorite such producers and labels is Alec's Blend by Napa Valley Lewis Cellars. This is one of our namesake labels for the groom, Alec. Watch as we serve a decade vertical of vintages of Alec's Blend Napa Valley Red Wine this weekend.  

Lastly, we also have find with labels in other ways. Watch for how "V" (for Vivianna) becomes centerpiece of some of our wine selections this weekend as well! 

 

 

One other factor in a horizontal collection (a collection of multiple wines from the same vintage) of a particular vintage, is the intersection with a vertical collection, where we hold a series of vintages of the same label. In this case, there are a number of labels where we have collected a series of vintages including each of the birthyears of our four kids, and in many cases, now, also the birthyear vintages of our grandkids. This allows for comparison tastings of a particular label from different vintages seeing how the wine ages over time and how it compares in different vintage harvests. A top vertical collection will invariably also include top rated years as well, as standard bearers and benchmarks for comparison. There are a dozen or more labels where we hold such vertical collections that include key vintages including, of course, birthyears and anniversaries. Many of these are the basis for our studies into the producers' and their histories, estate vineyards and their terroir, and contributing producers' winemakers and consultants. 

 

These pages are filled with references and features of our visits to producer estate wineries and vineyards where we hold deep vertical collections of such wines. Our visit to Bordeaux last year featured tours of estates of which we hold extensive collections spanning several decades - Château Ducru Beaucaillou, Léoville Las Cases, Château Gruaud-Larose and Pichon Lalande, for example. 

 

Lastly, a wine flight over the course of a dinner can include champagne, white wine, multiple red wines matched to food pairings, a dessert wine and an after dinner port or aperitif.  Watch how many different wines or wine types we can present from multiple (large) formats or vintage year releases over the course of a dinner or multiple events.

The 1994 Top 10
Rank	Wine	Score	Price
#1	CAYMUS Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Special Selection 1990	98	$75
#2	E. GUIGAL Côte-Rôtie La Mouline 1990	98	$135
#3	FLORA SPRINGS Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Reserve 1991	97	$33
#4	LEONETTI Merlot Washington 1992	96	$25
#5	FERRARI-CARANO Chardonnay Alexander Valley 1992	93	$20
#6	DOMAINE ZIND-HUMBRECHT Gewürztraminer Alsace Grand Cru Goldert Vendange Tardive 1990	96	$45
#7	LUCIANO SANDRONE Barolo Cannubi Boschis 1990	96	$46
#8	JEAN-LOUIS CHAVE Hermitage 1990	96	$63
#9	CROFT Vintage Port 1991	94	$32
#10	RIDGE Zinfandel Sonoma Valley Pagani Ranch Late Picked 1992	93	$16

 

#1

CAYMUS Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Special Selection 1990

98

$75

The 1994 Top 10
Rank	Wine	Score
#1	CAYMUS Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Special Selection 1990	98
#2	E. GUIGAL Côte-Rôtie La Mouline 1990	98
#3	FLORA SPRINGS Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Reserve 1991	97

The Top 10 Wines of 1993

Wine	Score	Price*
1. CHÂTEAU LATOUR Pauillac 1990	100	$80
2. GAJA Barolo Sperss 1989	96	$60
3. SILVERADO VINEYARDS Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Limited Reserve 1990	97	$40
4. CHÂTEAU LA LOUVIÈRE Pessac-Léognan 1990	94	$22
5. LOUIS LATOUR Corton-Charlemagne 1990	95	$83
6. CHÂTEAU PICHON-LONGUEVILLE-LALANDE Pauillac 1990	97	$40
7. MOUNT VEEDER Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 1990	94	$15
8. TENUTA DELL'ORNELLAIA Ornellaia 1990	96	$42
9. CHÂTEAU LAGRANGE St.-Julien 1990	95	$26
10. CHÂTEAU LAFITE ROTHSCHILD Pauillac 1990

 The 1995 Top 10

Rank	Wine	Score	Price
#1	PENFOLDS Shiraz South Australia Grange 1990	97	$100
#2	CAYMUS Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Special Selection 1991	99	$100
#3	THE HESS COLLECTION Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 1992	94	$18
#4	FONSECA Vintage Port 1992	96	$45
#5	COMTE GEORGES DE VOGÜÉ Musigny Cuvée Vieilles Vignes 1993	96	$140
#6	ZACA MESA Syrah Santa Barbara County Zaca Vineyards 1993	94	$13
#7	CAMPOGIOVANNI Brunello di Montalcino 1990	95	$43
#8	KISTLER Chardonnay Sonoma Valley Kistler Vineyard 1992	94	$40
#9	BERINGER Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Private Reserve 1992	95	$45
#10	TRIMBACH Riesling Alsace Cuvée Frédéric Emile 1990	96	$27