Cohn Vineyard. 40-60 year old vines. No, Kirkland didn’t make a 2002 Rutherford cab. Fortunately, Etude did! At the suggestion of a board regular, I was told to seek out the '02 Etude Rutherford Cab. Seek out, I did. Find, I did. Purchase, I did. Several times over.
I picked up my treasures from a local Napa industrial park warehouse yesterday, eager to extract the cork and taste the pure goodness that rested within. Fast forward a few hours and I elected to Coravin a glass. Uh oh. This smells over the hill. Really? WTF? Pushed the glass to the side and decide to go outside and let my Labrador Retriever see what it’s like to be a country dog as opposed to a city dog. My God, I swear she smells and chews everything up here in wine country. Avoid the grapes, Darby, or we’ll be at the vet’s, or worse.
So after about 30 minutes of monitoring her like she’s roaming the yard at Pelican Bay, I call her inside and decide to go back to the glass of Etude. Well what do you know? This bad boy was killer. A nose of aged cab that wants to say hello. You get the slight cocoa, and a hint green in the good way. Some black fruits that have integrated with the tertiary flavors. And the dust! Oh, let us not forget the dust! Fine tannins that taste like aged cocoa covered truffle desserts. By the time the bottle emptied, it was showing its best. Next time I’ll just set it and forget it. Needs air and time.
I think we all long for glorious aged cab. If you’re like me, you get annoyed with the Parker point-chaser cabs that could be used to power jet engines. This is not one of them.
It’s really fun to get to taste Pre-Scarecrow grapes (or so I believe) at a fraction of the price. Not a knock on Scarecrow, I just enjoy drinking Napa history.
The 02 Etude Rutherford was my WOTV, when I had it in 2006 with Aaron Pott. We were each blown away by it. It’s now 16 years old, which pushes the envelope of aging to me. Have not had this in several years. Glad it is still doing well!
I can’t remember now if this was one of the wines I blind-tasted with the un-released 2003 Scarecrow in December 2005, but the Etude Rutherford was always special in my book.
Nice note! I have very few bottles of this left, so this is very helpful…I would also recommend tracking down some of the ‘01 as well as it’s in a great spot right now too. I think it was a note of Roy’s from many years ago that really got me into Etude cabs from the Tony Soter era, and these Rutherford bottlings with the old Scarecrow vines are just killer (and value too, when you consider what Scarecrow costs)…
Well, it’s not like corn is in season there, and every grocery store and fruit stand has it in stock. You’ve probably realized by now you’ve been in the middle of an agricultural wasteland for the past couple months…
So when I was in Napa back in May, I had the great fortune of visiting and tasting at Scarecrow with the whole family, and it was a true treat. The visit went on for hours, and could have gone on for days. We hit it off, as I love the history of Napa just as much as Bret does.
Since we were getting a long so well, I figured I would ask the question since I had heard the story about the 2001 and 2002 Etude Rutherford Cabernet, and really wanted to know, and I knew that Bret would be totally transparent. Transparent he was, and he gave a big “no” as to the answer to this myth. The grapes did not come from his vineyard.
The fruit was only sold to Coppola for Rubicon (who is also the person who helped him buy Scarecrow), and that obviously stopped after the 2002 vintage.
Ian, just because it’s a long time rumor doesn’t excuse people from sowing the seeds of deceit and discord. Frankly if you hadn’t chimed in, Jeb’s picture of canned corn and an Etude bottled from the fabled Cohn vineyard old men could have started a panicked rush of purchasing. It’s a slippery slope that a ne’er-do-well like Jeb would love to have us all fall prey to. It’s a credit to your vigilance that this was stopped so quickly.
That being said, I still have my doubts about the dog. Does it in fact exist? In Jeb’s post, he refers to it as his “Labrador Retriever”, which seems to be a dead giveaway that he doesn’t actually own a dog. If he did, he would have referred to it by name or simply said “lab”. Real dog owners don’t go around introducing their dog by the breed type (“Oh and this is my Large Monsterländer!”). I plan on reaching out to Jeb directly to put this to rest.
You post implies that Jeb was doing something nefarious, and I don’t believe for one second that is what he was doing.
It’s been a major rumor for a long time. Heck, I bought in to it, so much so that I asked the owner of Scarecrow! It’s not like this wine is suddenly selling for $1000 a bottle on the open market.
That said, thanks Ian for clearing this up. I’ve long thought these were the old men Scarecrow grapes as well…mistakenly! Still an awesome wine though and I hope my remaining bottles drink as well as the OP’s
