Vine Cliff Cabernet Sauvignon 2001 Oakville

THE VINEYARD: The grapes for our 2001 Oakville Cabernet Sauvignon came from our Estate vineyard located in the heart of the Oakville appellation. The vineyard consists of 14 individual blocks ranging from steep hillside terraces, to the flat rocky red soil of the "Oakville Bench" at 400 feet above the valley floor. The combination of vineyard diversity, low yields and impeccable farming, has produced grapes and thus wine, with incredible flavor and concentration. A small amount of Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc was blended in for added complexity.

THE WINEMAKING: Individual vineyard blocks were hand picked separately and then carefully hand sorted at the winery before being destemmed into small fermentation tanks. The grapes were then cold soaked for 4 days before fermentation began. This is done to enhance flavor and color extraction. After an average of 22 days maceration, when the optimum balance of flavor and tannin extraction was reached, the wine was gravity drained from the skins into French oak barrels (72% new) for 19 months of aging in our wine caves. 2,570 cases were bottled unfined and unfiltered in mid-May, 2003.

THE EXPERIENCE: The aroma has ripe blackberry and cassis fruits, with nuances of toast and plum jam. The bouquet features complexities of cedar, vanilla, hints of toasty oak with tobacco and licorice. The palate carries forth lush and concentrated blackberry, plum and chocolate flavors. Ripe, chewy tannins with hints of licorice and mahogany oak that extend into the lengthy finish.

PRESS:

91 points: "This is an intense, firmly tannic youngster, with loads of mocha, toffee, currant and black cherry flavbors that are rich and concentrated, with a wall of chewy tannins on the finish." The Wine Spectator

91 points (TWO PUFFS): "Here is an extravagant and outgoing wine whose unabashed richness and opulent fruit tag is quintessentially Californian in character. It is full, fleshy and almost plush on the palate, and its many layered displays of current and chocolate and sweeping oak spice surpass the tannins." Connoisseurs'Guide to California Wine

91 points: "This is a very difficult wine to drink now, due to its palate-numbing tannins. Yet there's something big and flashy going on. The finish is very long in blackcurrant fruit, so stunningly rich it can only survive as the tannins fall out. Try after 2008, but it could go far beyond that."The Wine Enthusiast

Purchase Vine Cliff Cabernet Sauvignon 2001 Oakville

Other products in the category Vine Cliff wines by varietal / Cabernet Sauvignon: