Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
-
Tasting Panel
This complex 100% Cab, from a "perfect" growing season and aged 22 months in four different coopers' French oak, shows itself right away from the big notes of graphite and clay on the nose, tinted with brambly blackberry. Dusty tannins are stroked by fragrant, white peppers coffee-laden blackberries. Soy, cigar leaf, mint, and espresso keep the finish bold.
-
Connoisseurs' Guide
Formerly known as KaDieM, Hunt McKay has come up with a deep, solidly built, very serious Cabernet of great strength and fine focus. Its plentiful, hard-to-ignore tannins are matched by plenty of continuous, impressively concentrated cassis-like fruit, and, even while fairly gruff and youthfully rugged, it manages to shows flashes of vanilla, loam and subtle notes of dried herbs that herald real complexity to come. At least a half-dozen years of waiting are clearly warranted here, and the wine will continue to grow for a decade or more.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford has slightly more density than the 2011, darker black currants and a hit of blueberry, licorice and lead pencil shavings. It should drink nicely for 10-12 years.
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.
The Rutherford sub-region of Napa Valley centers on the town of Rutherford and covers some of Napa Valley’s finest vineyard real estate, spanning from the Mayacamas in the west, to the Vaca Mountains on the other side of the valley.
Inside of the Rutherford AVA, bordering the Mayacamas, is a stretch of uplands called the Rutherford Bench. (These bench lands technically run the length of Oakville as well). Mountain runoff creates deep, well-drained, alluvial soils on the bench, giving vine roots plenty of reason to permeate deep into the ground. The result is wine with great structure and complexity.
Rutherford Cabernet Sauvingons and Bordeaux Blends garner substantial attention for their enticing fragrances of dusty earth and dried herbs, broad and juicy mid-palates and lush and fine-grained tannins. The sub-appellation claims some of the valley’s most prized vineyards today, namely Caymus, Rubicon and Beckstoffer Georges III.
It is also home to Napa’s most influential and historic personalities. Thomas Rutherford, responsible for the appellation's name, made serious investments here in grape growing and wine production between the years of 1850 to 1880. Gustave Niebaum purchased a large swath of land and completed his winery in 1887, calling it “Inglenook.” Today this remains the oldest bonded winery in California. Georges Latour founded Beaulieu Vineyard in 1900, making it the oldest continuous winery in the state. Latour also hired the famous enologist, André Tchelistcheff, a man credited for single-handedly defining the modern Napa winemaking style.