A night of mostly California Cabs from the 1990s

January 23, 2011

California!

I have visited too few times the great and beautiful regions of Napa and Sonoma and another visit is long overdue. Living in  France, where wine choices overflow, one nevertheless does not get the chance to taste wines from around the world. French stores are basically protectionist. And if wines from non French regions are sold, they are usually put in some corner called “vins étrangers” usually with the bottom level wines that do not cost very much. So most French people have no clue about non French wine! Which is too bad, however understandable, because there is great wine to be found around the world. Of course I am a Francophile, and do think that the best wines can be found in Burgundy and in Bordeaux, not to mention in Champagne, along the Rhone Valley and in Alsace. But that is hardly being subjective. California Cabs are understandably famous – and sometimes underrated. Anyone who knows the story of the Judgment of 1976 in Paris can tell you this… and that was only when California wines were starting their modern Renaissance. Amazingly, Napa wines were not officially recognized by Europe until just less than four years ago.

TO THE TASTING NOTES : Wines in bold I liked, in red and bold even more and when underlined, just super!

Still, for people who have tried the best of California – and I have – one could argue that today’s California Cabs are often too rich for their own good, that the 1970s were more traditional. At least that is what I have heard from more experienced tasters. In some California wines today, you see very high alcohol levels and taste the new oak. Almost too much so, to the point where winemaking takes over from origin. I have had some wines from Napa that I do enjoy very much, such as Opus One, Dominus, Joseph Phelps, Cain Five and some others. But the older bottlings seem to intrigue many tasters. Many years ago, when Napa Valley Vintners organised a tasting of top California producers in Paris back in 2002 or so, I recall tasting aged Cabs from the late 1970s and was very impressed. Friends in the Washington DC area have also put together California Cab tastings with wines from the 1980s, also lovely. So it was with great anticipation that I participated in a tasting of California Cabs from the 1990s.

Truth be told, I found many to be overly sleek for my taste, and sometimes overly rich, indeed “sweet”… All were dry mind you, but the richness was such – and the structure lacking – that the overall impression was sweet. The fact that our gathering took place at the famous Charlie Palmers Steak House in Washington D.C. did not help matters for these wines. Rich Cab and steak is not the best combination: TOO MUCH. Far better would have been Pinot Noir, preferably Burgundy. Thankfully, there were some very pleasant surprises among the Cabs, and at least one wine which could more than stand up to most French Clarets of comparable age… But I will not reveal that just yet. 😉 And the restaurant was lovely, as was the company, and what a deal we had! Just $100 for a full course  – of steaks from the finest cuts of beef – and all the wines, corkage and tips included.

Dry whites

Dom Perignon 1998. No longer a youthful straw color when the wine was released, it exhibits fine toast aromas, a bit yeasty, with chalk and citrus. There is good vibrancy although it does not match the precision and depth of the 1996, which I have had within the last few weeks as well. Still, excellent Champagne!

Louis Latour Corton Charlemagne 2002

This wine started reticent, but was well preserved and – thankfully – not over-evolved. Indeed, it improved with time in glass, increasing in depth yet never becoming a large-scaled Corton Charlemagne. Still, I really liked its acacia and herbal, flower elements that seduced like a soft chorus. Louis Latour consistently makes fine Corton Charlemagne at a good price, and here we have a textbook example.

Domaine Olivier Leflaive Meursault Premier Cru Les Poruzots 2002. I remember purchasing four of these bottles in the summer of 2005, following the famous education lunch on offer at the “Leflaive Table” restaurant in Puligny Montrachet. It was then crisp and lovely. But today it was over-evolved, prematurely oxidized. Alas.

Domaine Joseph Drouhin Meursault Les Perrières 2002. Now that’s more like it. Thanks to Mr. Cropsal, then head of public relations at Drouhin, I was given this bottle at the beautiful Drouhin building in Beaune following a visit and tasting, also in 2005. This wine was textbook Meursault, tasting like it should at eight+ years of age. The color was youthful. The wine combined pine forest like freshness with buttery richness, and over time in glass – for about two hours – it became distinctly butterscotch-like on the nose, yet retained a fresh and dry expression on the palate, all expressed rather precisely.

The California reds

One note on voting for wine of the night. It was hard for me to vote for one wine for two reasons: the sheer variety and respective styles of the wines and the rather speedy tasting. Too speedy perhaps to really appreciate each wine as well as one could have, and account for evolution in each glass.

Mondavi Reserve 1990 This was like the Medoc with a bit more richness than usual for a wine at 20 years of age, perhaps revealing its New World nature. In any case, this could more than hold its own against many Clarets, exhibiting lovely cigar box and leather aromas and flavors without ever being a caricature because it exuded complexity. And freshness. The wine was balanced in its expression. When we were called on to vote for the wine of the night, I politely declined because there were so many different wines, but this would have been very close to being that wine for me.

Silver Oaks Alexander Valley 1991. As much as the above was complex and interesting, this was more mono-dimensional and sweet. I even got hints of brown sugar here, which detracted my more traditional palate! Yes, there was some eucalyptus and certainly richness but it seemed to lack structure.

Joseph Phelps Insignia 1992. This one was also a bit of a letdown. I recall tasting some fine Insignias in France when the Napa Valley Vintners Association organized tastings in Paris a few years back, in the early 2000s. While nuanced and more interesting than the above, it seemed to lack a mid-palate, basically too fluid. It is OK, certainly, but – once again – it paled in comparison to the Mondavi, and other wines at the tasting, see below:

Spottswoode 1993. Here another worthy wine of the night contender, but a very different style from Mondavi or, as we shall see later, Dominus. There was something very cohesive about this wine, exhibiting richness, without being sweet, and fine texture. Although I did not get the fine-grained tannin that one can feel from a top Bordeaux of comparable age – which just may mean that the Spottswoode’s smooth, even sleek, nature perhaps betrayed its New World origin – this is nitpicking. We are not, after all, drinking Bordeaux. I liked this wine a lot.

Silver Oak Alexander Valley 1994. Better than the 1991 Silver Oak to be sure, showing more punch and more structure but still far too sweet in expression for my taste. I think Marcus Stanley, sitting across from me, said it best: “It just does not go well with steak.” Indeed, the match was sweet wine with… rich steak, a combination too rich for my blood!

Beringer Reserve 1995. At first a hint of Band-Aid, but that blew off and the wine became something rather special. Along the way, I could get some rough edges on the texture, which nonetheless did display fine tannic grain. There was some eucalyptus but nicely integrated in the overall expression of this mostly Cabernet with some significant amount of Merlot (30%?)

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Dominus 1995. As much as I came to appreciate the Beringer, I think I tip my hat more to this 1995. The nose was at once subtle and powerful. Its initial expression was beef blood like, but not overwhelmingly. An interesting juxtaposition. What was more explosive was the palate, which was at once fresh and rich. Over time in glass, I got distinct green tobacco. And then I noticed it somewhat trailing off (I was able to keep this longer in glass), especially in comparison to the next wine.

Dominus 1997. This wine is too young for now. Some thought it was too rich, but I did not think it was ever sweet. Or flabby. It is just too young. It conveyed a denser feel than the 1995 and tasted not two years, but rather five years younger than the Dominus 1995. And yet one could enjoy it today because it was not austere in any way. There was a delicious feel. Certainly this has a lot of potential and a wine I really liked overall.

Mondavi Reserve 1997. Another wonderful wine from Mondavi. Very fresh with a lovely juicy aspect. Vif. With good substance. Is this going to go the way of the 1990? It is certainly on a slow motion evolutionary track. I would easily buy this. Another wine of the night candidate perhaps?

Mondavi Reserve 1998. At first I was pleasantly surprised here, given the difficult “El Nino” vintage. But compared with the 1997, it was not too hard to find some faults. Namely, it was overcome by oak-derived tannin. The finish was drying. And it did not have the juiciness of the 1997, even if it had volume.

Duckhorn Estate Cabernet 1999. I brought this wine after having bought it in Napa Valley from Margaret Duckhorn, back in February 2003. A sentimental offering. Although it was smooth in its own way, and pleasing, it was overshadowed by some of the better wines above.

Late harvest wines

Baumard Quarts de Chaume 2005. I liked this quite a bit, coming from half bottles. The wine was zingy and rich but more zingy than rich, if you get my drift. Went very well with my fruit cobbler. Could use a bit more aging to really sing though. But just very enjoyable!

Baumard Coteaux du Layon Clos de St Catherine 2005. Here we had a wine that was more rich than zingy. Rather viscous in fact. I appreciated its finesse, but was just a bit detracted by the viscosity and asked myself: probably wiser to revisit later?

Ch. Raymond Lafon Sauternes 2001. At ten years of age (almost), this is showing well, exhibiting custard, acacia, apricot, vanilla and pineapple. A rather textbook expression of fine Sauternes from an excellent vintage at 10 years of age. Needs more time of course to get complex, but it was nice.