Winemaker Notes
Blend: 85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Malbec, 6% Petit Verdot
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Deeper, rich, and more concentrated, the 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve is a blend of 85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Malbec, and 5% Petit Verdot that spent 22 months in new French oak. There’s 700 cases of this terrific 2015 and it has awesome purity in its crème de cassis, blueberries, scorched earth, dark chocolate, and smoky aromas and flavors. Deep, full-bodied, beautifully textured and showing the concentration, richness and breadth of the vintage, it has the fruit to drink well today but will be even better in 3-4 years and keep for two decades.
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Vinous
The 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve is a huge, full-throttle wine. Inky dark fruit, graphite, and sweet oak are dialed up. Overall, the 2015 has aged well. The presence of high-impact barrels from coopers like Darnajou marks the wine to a significant degree. All things considered, the 2015 has aged impeccably. It will drink well for another decade.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve is inky purple-black colored and closed to begin, opening out to baked blackberries and preserved plums with hints of mocha, tar and chargrill plus a waft of wild thyme. Full, firm and a little hard in the mouth, it has a good core of muscular, savory fruit with just enough freshness and a long finish.
Rating: 92+
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.
St. Helena is in the heart of the Napa Valley, nestled between Calistoga to the north and Rutherford on its southern border. On its western side, the Mayacamas Mountains guard it from the cooling effects of the Pacific Ocean; to its east stand the Vaca Mountains. In conjunction, these mountain ranges serve to lock in summer daytime heat. But in the evening, cool air from the San Pablo Bay funnels up through the valley, creating very chilly nights. It isn’t uncommon for temperatures to drop 50 degrees, a shift that promotes a balance of sugar ripeness and acidity in wine grapes.
St. Helena contains a plethora of different soil types in a small area, which have been enhanced over centuries by rain runoff from both mountain ranges. Its vineyards cover a variety of terrain, spreading across the bucolic valley floor and its benchlands.
These ideal topographic and climatic growing conditions easily caught the attention of early winemaking pioneers. In fact, St. Helena is the birthplace of Napa Valley’s commercial wine industry. Dr. Crane founded his cellar in 1859, David Fulton in 1860 and Charles Krug in 1861.
Today there are no less than 400 separate vineyards planted within the 12,000 acres that make up the St. Helena appellation.
Revered most for its red wines based on Bordeaux varieties, namely Cabernet Sauvignon, the St. Helena appellation is also a source of superior Syrah, Zinfandel and Sauvignon blanc.