These wines were samples for review.
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Sea-Fog Sauvignon Blanc 2010, Napa Valley, receives a trace of oak aging, that is, to the extent of 10 percent of the juice going into 11-year-old French barrels for three months; I like the thoughtful deliberation of that choice. This is 100 percent sauvignon blanc from a single vineyard in a warm area of Calistoga, at the foot of Mount Saint Helena, and the wine is beautiful, sleek, suave and tremendously appealing. Enticing aromas of tangerine, nectarine and lemongrass are woven with hints of roasted lemon, ginger and quince, bay leaf and thyme and a floral element — jasmine and honeysuckle — that seems to wreathe itself around your head. The wine practically shimmers with crisp and crystalline acidity and a burgeoning limestone character that support winsome flavors of lemon balm, orange rind and just a wisp of mango. Paradoxically, for all its sensual allure, the Sea-Fog Sauvignon Blanc 2010 finishes with spareness and a touch of astringency, as if grapefruit gets the final word. 14.1 percent alcohol. Production was 380 cases. Now through 2014. Excellent. About $25.
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The Grade Cabernet Sauvignon 2008, Calistoga, Napa Valley, spent two years in French oak, 40 percent new barrels. Sporting a dark yet radiant ruby-purple color, the wine feels like classic Napa Valley in its scope and dimension, its intensity and concentration, its remarkable presence and tone, vibrancy and resonance. The bouquet is a beauty, a beguiling and fairly exotic amalgam of cassis, black raspberries and mulberries buoyed by lavender, violets and sandalwood, thyme and cedar, with back-notes of fruitcake, black olive and graphite. In the mouth, the wine forgoes a bit of its seductive power for a more solid, brooding aspect, though there’s nothing heavy or obvious here. Ripe and spicy black and blue fruit flavors are permeated by clean loamy earth, granite-like minerality and dense, grainy tannins that grow in import through the long, slightly austere finish; all these aspects are wrapped around a core of bittersweet chocolate, potpourri and a bit of iron. Power and elegance seamlessly allied. 14.3 percent alcohol. Production was 270 cases. Now through 2018 to 2020. Excellent. About $80.
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Pine Ridge bottles separate cabernets from each of its appellation vineyards, but the focus of the Pine Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon 2009, Napa Valley, is a general sense, as far as it can be manifested, of the region itself and its character as an ideal location for the grape, a character cemented after Prohibition by Beaulieu Vineyards, Louis M. Martini and Inglenook and built upon by many other wineries over the decades. The wine is a blend of 76 percent cabernet sauvignon, 14 percent petit verdot, 6 percent merlot and 4 percent malbec, drawn from Pine Ridge’s estate vineyards, mainly in Stags Leap and Rutherford. It aged 18 months in 60 percent French and 40 percent American oak barrels, of which 50 percent of the barrels were new.

If your ideal of a Napa Valley cabernet is a brilliantly dark-hued wine that exudes cool aromas of pure and elemental (and slightly briery) cassis and black cherry freighted with dusty cloves and thyme, graphite and iron with undertones of cedar, tobacco, black olive and bittersweet chocolate; if that ideal wine embodies a marriage of elegance and power in its balance among a sleek supple texture, a dense chewy structure and a combined sense of deftness, fleetness, substance and dynamic energy; and, finally, if that ideal Napa Valley cabernet would feel packed with spice and warm, ripe and slightly macerated black and blue fruit flavors supported by clean earthy granite-like minerality, burnished oak and prominent but modulated tannins: Well, brothers and sisters, this is the wine for you. And, in fact, for me. A sensible 14.1 percent alcohol. Drink now through 2017 or ’18, especially with a crusty medium-rare strip steak right off the smokin’ grill. Excellent. About $54.

A sample for review.

These were all samples for review.
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Toad Hollow Eye of the Toad Rosé of Pinot Noir 2011, Sonoma County. 11.5% alc. Pure strawberry and raspberry with undertones of pear, melon and peach skin; a hints of orange rind, almond blossom and limestone; quite dry but soft and juicy; more stones and bones on the finish. Delightful. Very Good+. About $13, a Great Bargain.
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Craggy Range Kidnappers Vineyard Chardonnay 2011, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand. 13% alc. A lovely, delicate, elegant chardonnay, yet very spicy, slightly resinous (as in a hint of rosemary), touched of roasted lemon, pineapple and grapefruit with a tinge of mango; underlying richness and complexity, quite dry, always mindful of balance and poise. More than charming, attractively individual. Excellent. About $21.
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Nickel & Nickel Truchard Vineyard Chardonnay 2010, Carneros, Napa Valley. 14.5% alc. Rich but beautifully balanced, bold but not brassy; classic pineapple-grapefruit scents and flavors deeply infused with cloves and allspice, hints of lemon and honeysuckle; a golden and sunny chardonnay with a sheen of deft oak, ripe and slightly creamy yet with a prominent limestone edge. Pure, intense, sophisticated. Excellent. About $50.
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Naked Earth 2009, Vin de Pays d’Oc (though the front label says “South of France”). 12.5% alc. Merlot 50%, cabernet sauvignon 25%, grenache 20%, carignan 5%. Certified organic. Surprising character for the price and geographic anonymity; dark ruby color; cedar, tobacco, black olives; black currants and plums; lavender and violets, touch of new leather; dry, dusty tannins, almost velvety texture, spicy black fruit flavors, lipsmacking acidity. Worth seeking out. Very Good. About $12, representing Real Value.
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Green Truck Zinfandel 2009, Mendocino County. 13.5% alc. Certified organic. A generic red wine with wild berries and brambles, very dusty tannins and heaps of graphite-like minerality. People searching for organic wine deserve better. Good. About $14.
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Murphy-Goode Merlot 2009, California. 13.5% alc. Medium ruby color with a lighter rim; toasty oak, caraway and celery seed; cherries, plums and raspberries; very dry, disjointed plus a vanilla backnote. Not recommended. About $14.
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Murphy-Goode Cabernet Sauvignon 2009, California. 13.5% alc. Better than the merlot but still fairly ordinary; attractive heft and texture, ripe and spicy black currant, black raspberry and plum scents and flavors, nice balance among fruit, acidity and mildly dusty chewy tannins. Very Good. About $14.
Note that both of these Murphy-Goode products carry a California appellation instead of Sonoma County and are “vinted” rather than “produced,” which means that consumers have no idea whence within the state the grapes came or where the wine was made. Jackson Family Wines acquired Murphy-Goode in 2006.
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Mark West Pinot Noir 2010, Santa Lucia Highlands. 14.2% alc. Dark ruby color with a paler ruby edge; black cherry and leather, cola and cloves; hits all the necessary points without being compelling; dense, chewy tannins, swingeing acidity, very dry with a dusty, earthy, mineral-flecked finish. Very Good. About $14. (Sorry, the price is actually about $19.)
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Davis Bynum Pinot Noir 2010, Russian River Valley. 14.5% alc. You gotta like wood to like this one. At first, subtly woven black cherry, mulberry, smoke, cola and woody spice (cloves, sandalwood), then you feel the oak sneak up, as it were, from the back to front, smothering everything in its path. Not my cuppa tea. Good. About $35.
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Mount Veeder was founded in 1973 by Michael and Arlene Bernstein, 2,000 feet up the mountain for which the winery is named. From the beginning, they produced earthy, tannic, mineral-laced cabernets that often required a decade to shed their austerity and then rewarded those having patience with deep, rich, resonant flavors and balanced structures. Occasionally, the mountain-side tannins got the better of the wines, and there are Mount Veeder cabernets from the 1970s and early ’80s that never came around. Still, it was always gratifying to know that one could expect no compromise from this focused winery. The Bernsteins also made a little zinfandel, chenin blanc and chardonnay.

The Bernsteins sold the winery to Henry and Lisille Mathieson in 1982, but the significant change came in 1989, when the Mathiesons sold Mount Veeder to the partnership of Agustin Huneeus and the Eckes Corp. of what was then West Germany. The Eckes had hired Huneeus, a Chilean, to put Franciscan in shape to be sold, but under his sensible leadership, the winery had turned around and improved. In optimistic expansion mode, Huneeus launched Estancia, and then acquired the venerable Simi and Mount Veeder wineries. Along with Veramonte, in Chile, these properties comprised Franciscan Estates. The whole kit-and-kaboodle was sold to Constellation in 1998. Mount Veeder is now part of that giant corporation’s Icon Estates portfolio.

And what about the vintage?

The cabernet sauvignon grape profited from a series of fine years in the 1990s, particularly 1994 through ’97 but at each end of the decade too. The Spring and late Summer of 1998 were atypically rainy, and uneven ripening required careful practice in the vineyards and brought the prospect of a late harvest. September came through, though, with warmth and clean skies, and the harvest, which was somewhat reduced, lasted into early November.

So, the color of the Mount Veeder Cabernet Sauvignon 1998 is a lovely dusky ruby with a faint garnet-hued rim; aromas of spiced and macerated red and black currants are just touched with cedar and tobacco and hints of mossy forest floor and dried mushrooms, while after a few minutes in the glass, the wine pulls up notes of iron-and-iodine-tinged minerality and lightly toasted walnuts. It’s quite dry in the mouth, with red and black fruit flavors ensconced in silky, finely-milled tannins and spicy, supple oak; give it 30 minutes or so to develop elements of dried orange zest, mocha and oolong tea, even as the acidity begins to assert itself a bit sharply. The finish is austere, a little woody, sweetly autumnal. 13.5 percent alcohol. This wine, a graceful and elegant measure of a mature Napa Valley cabernet, should drink nicely through 2014 or ’15. Excellent. About $42.

Sequoia Grove occupies the sweet spot in the Napa Valley, between Rutherford and Oakville. President and director of winemaking is Michael Trujillo; winemaker is Molly Hill. The grapes for Cambium 2007, the wine’s inaugural release, derive from Rutherford and Oak Knoll and, in the opposite direction, from a high-elevation vineyard on Atlas Peak. The blend is 76 percent cabernet sauvignon, 12 percent cabernet franc, 8 percent merlot and 4% petit verdot; the wine aged 22 months in French oak barrels. The task here obviously was not to pinpoint the character of a particular vineyard or even a small appellation but to embody some spirit or essence of the Napa Valley, at which I think the wine succeeds admirably.

Sequoia Grove Cambium 2007, Napa Valley, presents a dark ruby color with a blacker interior; scents of spiced, macerated and slightly roasted black currants, black raspberries and plums are permeated by the essential nature of cedar and tobacco, leather and lavender and nuanced whiffs of black olive and thyme. These qualities are all classic features of Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon wines. In the mouth, well, think dense, thick, chewy, authoritative; nothing ingratiating here, nor would we want it to be. At this availability and price — see further down — we want a wine that expresses purity and intensity of its constituent parts with robustness and rigor, precision and dignity, and that’s what we get here. Yes, black fruit flavors (with a shade of blue) are certainly present, but the wine’s dominating factors are velvet-flocked and graphite-laced tannins and unimpeachably firm, resonant and deeply spicy oak bound by the crucial element of vibrant acidity. There’s a touch of the dreadnaught about the wine, but it’s skillfully made, so despite its resoluteness it’s neither heavy nor obvious. 14.4 percent alcohol. Drink from 2013 or ’14 through 2020 to ’24. Production was 350 cases. Excellent. About $140.

A sample for review.

These were samples for review. Image of Mt. Pisgah Vineyard from stoneedgefarm.com.
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The Stone Edge Farm Cabernet Sauvignon 2007, Sonoma Valley, blends 81 percent cabernet sauvignon with 19 percent merlot. The wine aged 26 months in all-new French oak barrels. Boy, this is a wild, smoldering, unfettered wine that seethes with notes of ripe, spicy black currants, plums and mulberries drenched in cedar and black olives, lavender and graphite. The wine is dense with dusty fine-grained tannins and firmly bolstered by oak that feels sanded and burnished to a gleam, ever-present, assuredly, yet suave and understated; black and blue fruit flavors are permeated by these elements, as well vibrant acidity and a relentless yet somehow effortless cast of graphite and iron-like minerality. The finish is long, packed with woody spice and scintillating minerals and intriguing notes of caraway, dried thyme and dill seed. 14.3 percent alcohol. Production was 600 cases. Drink now through 2017 to ’19. Excellent. About $60.
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The combination of grapes in the Surround Cabernet Sauvignon 2007, Sonoma Valley, is 86 percent cabernet sauvignon and 14 percent merlot; aged, like its cousin, for 26 months, it take 70 percent new French oak barrels rather than all-new. And rather than the grapes being all from Stone Edge and Mt. Pisgah, there are contributions from two other vineyards managed by Phil Coturri, one high in the Mayacamas range. Surround ’07 is a remarkably ripe, fleshy, spicy, earthy and minerally wine; its aromas and flavors of black currants and black cherries unfold to notes of mint and blueberries, a hint of red currants, elements of leather and moss and a fascinating smoky-eucalyptus-caraway edge. Dusty tannins, polished oak and resonant acidity provide enveloping structure, while the texture is more spare than opulent. 14.4 percent alcohol. Production was 780 cases. Drink now through 2016 to ’18. Were I supervising a restaurant wine list, I would try to snag a couple of cases if this wine to offer at a fairly reasonable price with steaks and chops. Excellent. About $30.
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Louis M. Martini was a master blender, and his preference was to blend fruit from several vineyards, using Monte Rosso as the core. He had no use for the small French oak barrels (barriques) that were coming into wider use in California. In fact, Martini didn’t even like American oak; he chose, instead, to ferment and age his red wines in 1,500-gallon redwood vats, a practice the winery continued until 1989, when the tanks were dismantled. This old-fashioned sensibility produced some of the best cabernet sauvignon in California in the 1940s and ’50s; the hallmarks of these surprisingly long-lived wines were elegance, balance, integrity and concentrated flavors. Louis M.’s son Louis P. became winemaker in 1954 and took charge of production in 1968, continuing to make wines in his father’s tradition. Fashion changed however. Temperature-controlled stainless steel fermentation and new French oak barrels were introduced, primarily by Louis P.’s son Michael, who became winemaker in 1977. For whatever complicated reasons, though, after the superb 1970, Martini ceased to be an important player in the increasingly competitive arena of Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon, actually failing to produce excellent wines in the exceptional years of 1974 and 1978.

The 1980s and ’90s saw the winery slide into the middle ranks of California’s old-line producers at the same time as it was outclassed by many newcomers. The winery and its vineyards, including Monte Rosso, were acquired by E&J Gallo in 2002; Mike Martini stayed on as winemaker. The last time I reviewed a range of cabernet-based wines from Louis M. Martini was in December 2009 (here); those wines were from 2006 and 2007 and mainly rated Excellent. That’s not the case for the four wines under consideration in this post, one from 2009, three from 2008; I found these present cabernets to be burdened, even smothered, with toasty, spicy, vanilla-laced new oak. No disrespect intended, but I wonder what Louis M. and Louis P. Martini would make of these modern, hyper-stylish, technologically-correct cabernets. The Gallo company and the Martinis obviously intend for the winery’s ambitious cabernet sauvignons to be competitive with the best that Napa and Sonoma offer, but as far as this quartet is concerned, it’s not happening. The winery may be venerable, but the wines are not “old-school.”

These were samples for review. The image is from my first label notebook, dated Feb. 8 & 9, 1983. I am indebted to Charles L. Sullivan’s A Companion to California Wine (University of California Press, 1998) and to James Laube’s California’s Great Cabernets (Wine Spectator Press, 1989), the latter the most complete and knowledgeable survey of the history of wine and winemaking at Louis M. Martini.
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Louis M. Martini Cabernet Sauvignon 2009, Sonoma County. This is Martini’s basic cabernet sauvignon; the fruit derives from various sites in several of the county’s sub-appellations. No information is offered about the barrel-aging regimen, but you can definitely feel the oak. The color is rich, dark ruby; classic aromas of cassis and black cherry are bolstered by whiffs of dried thyme and cedar, black olive and lead pencil, with plummy, spicy undercurrents that expand to smoke and toast. The wine is even smokier and toastier in the mouth, burgeoning with scintillating graphite-like mineral elements that part the waves for an armada of smoky, toasty wood that submerges whatever fruit might linger in the background; it’s hard for the flavors to seep through. 13.8 percent alcohol. The company produced 266,200 cases of this wine, so in its wide availability and its focus, it represents Martini’s intent and philosophy. Good+. About $18.
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Louis M. Martini Cabernet Sauvignon 2008, Napa Valley. Here’s a blend of 87 percent cabernet sauvignon, 4 percent cabernet franc, 3 percent petite sirah and 4 percent “other,” the most intriguing word in winedom. I’ll quote the winemaker’s notes: “The wine was oak aged in a mix of French, American and Hungarian oak barrels with a medium to heavy toast levels to add flavor and complexity.” I’m sorry to say that instead of supplementing the wine’s flavors and complexity, this aging routine dampened and dumbed down any flavors the wine could have displayed. The color, again, is radiant dark ruby; there’s a great deal of smoke and toast in the bouquet, wrapped around tight and focused cassis, black cherry and plum aromas. Both in nose and mouth the wine features intense, even penetrating graphite and shale-like minerality and a sharp smoky, ash-edged field of tobacco, walnut shell and creamy, spicy oak; the whole package is like oak candy sans fruit. 14.2 percent alcohol. Production here was 16,203 cases, so we’re moving up the scale of consideration. Try from 2012 or ’14 to 2018 or ’20. Good+. About $25.
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Louis M. Martini Cabernet Sauvignon 2008, Alexander Valley, Sonoma County. Despite the powerful oak presence in this wine — a blend of 94 percent cabernet sauvignon with 6 percent petit verdot — I found it the most accessible of this quartet. Let me quote again from the material I was sent: “The wine was aged for 18 months in new and used French, American and Hungarian oak barrels with a mixture of heavy, medium and medium plus toasting levels to add flavor and complexity.” Yeah, well, it’s the heavy toast that kills the wine, and this one did not escape totally unscathed — there’s a lot of oak influence here! — but it also manages to deliver bright and vivid notes of cassis and black cherry, licorice and lavender and, in the mouth, plenty of unrestrained spicy, plummy macerated and almost jammy black fruit flavors, with overtones of iodine and mint. The wine is dense and chewy, creamy with oak, grainy with dusty tannins, and the finish works out its length through mineral-laced austerity. 14.8 percent alcohol. You have to like the style, otherwise, you’ll find this wine fairly exaggerated. Drink now, with steak or braised short ribs, through 2018 or ’20. Production was 1,919 cases. Very Good+. About $35.
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Louis M. Martini Lot No. 1 Cabernet Sauvignon 2008, Napa Valley. The Big Gun of this group — there’s 3 percent petit sirah in the blend — aged 22 months in all new French oak barrels. That factor and the alcohol content push the spicy/ripe/sweetish qualities pretty high, though there are elements here that are not just attractive but compelling, as in the brilliant and vivid bouquet, a heady weaving of jammy black currants, black cherries and plums imbued with mocha and cloves, sandalwood, lavender and graphite. Lot No. 1 is monumental in structure, deeply dimensioned, tightly focused, intense and concentrated; the oak is, indeed, “toasty sweet,” and tannins are mountainside dusty and granite-flecked, enormous in scope; the result is a wine that delivers tremendous muscle power but misses the heart of elegance that would make it complete and balanced rather than ultimately blunt and obvious. This simply lacks the character to compete with other Napa Valley cabernets at its rather hefty price; still, try from 2014 pr ’15 through 2018 to ’20 to see how it develops. 15 percent alcohol. Production was 716 six-pack cases. Very Good+. About $120.
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