Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Lifted floral , black cherry, Victoria plum, leaf and red berry bouquet. Intense floral/cherry fruit flavours on the palate and sweet tannins. It is bursting with fruit but finesse also. Has complexity and vigour with a full character.
Range: 90-94 Points
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon is a beauty of elegance and power, revealing a dense ruby/purple color as well as lovely black currant fruit intermixed with black cherries, loamy soil and spring flowers. Medium to full-bodied and elegant as well as authoritatively flavored and rich, this blend of 84% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12% Malbec and 4% Petit Verdot has tamed the mountain rusticity and offers rich fruit and floral flavors that have more in common with the Stags Leap appellation
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Wine Spectator
Dark, intense and structured, at points supple and graceful, with ripe currant, wild berry, plum and savory herb notes that are well-focused, persistent and compelling, only drying on the long finish.
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Connoisseurs' Guide
Nicely focused, fairly deep, curranty fruit serves as the confident centerpiece of this well-crafted wine, and, if still a bit backward and nascent, it teases with complexing elements of briar and spice and neatly placed oak. While not overly tough, the wine is far from being ready any time soon, and its sense of solidity and seriousness tags it as one for the cellar.
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Wine Enthusiast
Enormously rich in blackberries, cherries, chocolate and roasted almonds, with lots of smoky, sweet caramelized new oak. Almost like granola candy now. The tannins are firm, as befits a Diamond Mountain wine, but refined and velvety.
A noble variety bestowed with both power and concentration, Cabernet Sauvignon enjoys success all over the globe, its best examples showing potential to age beautifully for decades. Cabernet Sauvignon flourishes in Bordeaux's Medoc where it is often blended with Merlot and smaller amounts of some combination of Cabernet Franc, Malbecand Petit Verdot. In the Napa Valley, ‘Cab’ is responsible for some of the world’s most prestigious, age-worthy and sought-after “cult” wines. Somm Secret—DNA profiling in 1997 revealed that Cabernet Sauvignon was born from a spontaneous crossing of Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc in 17th century southwest France.
Diamond Mountain is the northernmost mountain appellation in the Mayacamas Range, on the northwest side of the valley floor, above the town of Calistoga. Defined mainly by elevation, vineyards are planted at 400 to 2,200 feet.
Diamond Mountain vineyards receive plenty of sunshine at these elevations and are typically above the coastal fog line. But given its western proximity, the area still easily cools down from early morning and late afternoon Pacific Ocean breezes. The AVA (American Viticultural Area) covers 5,000 acres but just over 500 acres are under vine.
Diamond Mountain soils, mainly weathered, red sedimentary rock and decomposed, volcanic ash, are infertile, quick-draining and produce small, thick-skinned grapes, bursting with chewy tannins.
Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Petit Verdot and Zinfandel have great success here.
Like other sub-appellations in Napa Valley, the Diamond Mountain area had no shortage of pioneer winemakers. Rudy von Strasser led the effort for Diamond Mountain to acquire AVA status in 1999.