2012 CA wines, both better on day #2

Both were opened for Thanksgiving but wanted until leftover turkey sammiches Friday to strut their stuff!

Enfield Ft Ross Cab Sav is a unique expression while easily recognized as Cabernet. This was a very good bottle.

Arnot Roberts Trousseau remains my favorite domestic bottle of this somewhat rare grape. Tannins alive and well here.

Hurrah for second day wines!

Wonder why they bottle the cab in a ballon style bottle?

I think that’s just poor photography, it’s a pretty pedestrian bottle.

By day #2, you mean opened, then immediately recorked and left that way?

Both bottles opened for hours Thanksgiving day, then recorked and left on deck overlooking Pacific overnight.

You should have opened up 2 new bottles of the same the next day and compared them blind. That would have been a true test.

Good stuff Glenn - appreciate the notes!

Still need to find me some Enfield wines to try.

Hm… I wonder if the nice view had any affect?

It is in a Burg bottle- Both a nod to the predominantly Pinot / Chard area (Fort Ross / Seaview) and an physical indication that the wine is pretty different than most CA Cab.

I did drink the Trousseau during Thanksgiving, and have had the Enfield before. Friday lunch was best showing for each wine from memory.

I drank the A-R '11 Trousseau this summer, I have to say I like these a lot with a few years of bottle age.

When I opened one that was newly bottled my thought was this is a nice wine, but not spectacular. A couple years of bottle age made it a near wow experience.

Yep - and a sentiment that carries true for so many well made wines that are consumed too early . . .

Cheers.

Or maybe because one doesn’t necessarily have to follow ‘tradition’ I’d one doesn’t want to

Glenn, can you please give me a little bit more detail about the Enfield Cabernet Sauvignon?

Drew you a boxing guy? This Enfield is like Bob Foster, The Deputy Sheriff. Almost all only recall Foster getting KO’ed by Frazier in 1970 and Ali in 72, but he defended the lightheavyweight championship fourteen times!

Foster had all the tools: power, precision, stamina, good chin, but he couldn’t match legendary heavyweights. I’d liken Enfield Ft Ross Seaview Cab Sav to Foster as the wine is lithe and graceful but with ample power. I’d never match this wine against a Schrader or Maybach but I think you can appreciate both as great.

Make any sense?

I have loved their Trouseaus, but the latest vintage has me a bit perplexed. Have you tried it? Its significantly lighter in style to me than the two prior vintages. Not a bad wine, but not what I was expecting.

13 was the last vintage we tasted Tom.

Thanks for the kind words Glenn, I opened a 12 during harvest for the interns and the wine has turned a nice corner.

For those who were curious, the first couple vintages of the Cab were bottled in burgundy shaped glass mainly for logistical reasons on such a small lot. It would have been quite a bit of extra expense to pass on to consumers. Once the decision was made however I did think in many ways it was, as Hardy said, an effective way to illustrate that this is not your standard California Cabernet.

We will most likely start bottling in Bordeaux glass next vintage.

Yeah John I agree that good things are happening for your 12 Enfield Ft Ross Seaview Cabernet. We will be balancing getting a bottle or two out twenty years and the fact I would not mind another this holiday season!

Man, oh man is the 12 Fort Ross Seaview beginning it’s strut thru a fabulous drinking window.

Complete now, stand up straight & strong.