2016 Mayacamas Vineyards Merlot- USA, California, Napa Valley, Mt. Veeder (4/30/2021)
First thing that strikes me is the color…a red raspberry jelly with some pinkish rim…wonderful nose of dusty white pepper, wild underbrush, crushed cherries and raspberries, dried roses, red licorice…SUCH an appealing nose! In the mouth…ahhhh…there’s that graphite dry extract that I LOVE! Dusty, savory, sandalwood spiced oak, crushed rock, cinnamon stick…wonderful spicy and savory tannins, goes well with the briary mountain fruit that’s perfectly ripe(13.75 abv), with restraint…lots of exotic, floral and spice complexities…and THIS is where the “Merlot” shines…the silky smooth texture ala right bank Bords…you can enjoy this wine now for it’s youthful exuberance and vibrancy…without having to cellar for 20+yrs like the cabs. Fantastic wine here…would put a TON of Napa cabs to shame imo. (95 pts.)
Back to the original post, one I’ve only had sporadically but which almost always delivers for me.
Mount Veeder.
IIRC comfortably under $50. Real mountain character. A bit gnarly when young, but ages very gracefully. I’ve got one lined up for a comparison I’m doing between Mayacamas Mountain and Santa Cruz Mountain wines.
Kris, I find your thoughts spot on with the red/blue fruit of SCM versus Mayacamas. I often get the crunchy red fruit spine on the majority SCM cabs while Mayacamas is definitely more blue fruited and has a more tannic and powerful core. Although Monte Bello Cab and Estate Merlot often have a powerful blue fruit core with plenty of tannin. Incidentally, I recently visited Mayacamas as a friend who I worked with at Rhys with me is on the crew there now and hosted, and it sounds like they are keeping much of the traditional winemaking there intact after the changing of hands. So it seems like the wines should maintain their incredible long life spans. But it sounds like they might be making small refinements to winemaking aspects such as élevage which may make them a bit more approachable on release.
If we look at the great historic Bordeaux variety sites in the SCM that are currently under vine including Bates Ranch, Kathryn Kennedy, Mount Eden/Peter Martin Ray, Monte Bello, and maybe La Questa most have profiles that lean to red fruit in my tasting experience. I’ve made Cabernets from both Bates Ranch and Peter Martin Ray as well as Merlot from smaller sites in Los Altos Hills (plus a vintage working at Mount Eden) and found them to lean heavily to red profiles. Interestingly, the one time I tasted a '50s Hallcrest Estate, another famous historic SCM Cabernet site often talked about in reverence by those lucky enough to have tried them, it seemed to have a blue fruit profile although a Felton Empire Hallcrest Vineyard bottling from the late 70s showed a red profile.
Another discussion that might budd from this comparison is that the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA is really big and begs to be subdivided up with many of the top Cabernet sites lying in different AVAs. Winemakers tend to talk about the SCM in six or seven regions when chatting over beer late at night. It’s an awfully big place with a lot of diversity but some common threads of geology, climate, and aspect in various “subregions”. In particular Monte Bello (ridge) likely deserves its own designation and as discussed might show more similar to MM. One of the better Cabernet sites of the SCM, Beauregard Ranch, has already been split off into the Ben Lomond sub-AVA years ago and interestingly shows a blue profile.
We went up to Napa yesterday and went to the Mayacamas downtown tasting room. They were pouring the 2019 Merlot. Even though it now retails for $65 there, it is an excellent wine and one I would recommend. There is a ton of blue fruit in the profile, but enough structure and acid to allow it to age for years. We came home with one and will buy more.
