Winemaker Notes
The 2014 Firehouse Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon is a stunning wine with many intriguing facets. Copious aromas of black currants, black raspberries and huckleberries dance from the glass. Layers of wild flowers, forest brush, volcanic rock, graphite and elegant French oak continue to unfold as the wine opens up in the glass. The palate is fully loaded with great structure, complexity and a charming rustic edge. This wine benefits from decanting an hour before drinking.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Fully ripe, robust black fruit brims along a seamless and intense core of spicy tobacco, black pepper and plum highlights in this wine. A dusting of tannins carries a spark of cocoa powder on the finish.
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James Suckling
This is nicely poised with polished tannins and a pretty dusty texture. Full body, black currant and chocolate flavors. Long finish. Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon Firehouse Vineyard from Rutherford displays loamy soil notes, more kirsch liqueur, and redder fruits than its two stable mates, but offers up full body, a judicious use of toasty oak, and a layered, rich mouthfeel. An elegant wine featuring more finesse than the more powerful and masculine Napa cuvée, it should be drunk over the next 10-14 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.