Paul and Stef continue to create wonderful wines at prices that don’t break the bank. For this reason, I’m always surprised these cabs don’t get more love on the board.
Dark purple in the glass. Powerful nose of cassis, dark berries, after 8 mint, and soil. Full body. Good dose of acid. Soft in the mouth despite the grippiness that kicks in on the finish. Still, this is very drinkable now. Ends with the dark fruit and mint finish that I really love.
The '06 turned me on to this winery, and this is a step or two better. I’m a happy buyer of these wines.
I have really enjoyed the Stefania wine I have had so far. I have some of this Cab in my cellar. I have not tried it yet. I thought it best to wait. I see you said it was drinkable now, but what would you estimate as a drinking window on this wine?
for much the same reason i index the market (since i can’t see the future), i don’t really predict drinking windows. i have a case of this, so i’ll drink 1 a year and go from there.
Fair enough. I will continue to hold.
if you have several, it’s well worth trying out now. why buy each year if these may not be for you?
I have baby killed their Syrah’s, and found them young but extremely delicious. I assumed that the Cab would require more time as their Syrah does.
have not tried the syrah. no doubt this will be better with some years behind it.
Joined the list based on recommendations here. Couldn’t buy on the first offer because of employment issues. Next offer was 1/1/2 or something like that. Paul stated he wanted to offer more to those who were new on the list to the detriment of those with more years who but hadn’t purchased. Unfortunately a pass for me as I have no interest in purchasing single bottles. Haven’t revisited.
That wasn’t a normal offer. Certainly not indicative of future quantities. If I recall correctly, it was clearly described as a sampler, with the intent being to give people on the wait list a chance to try some of their wines before the would have otherwise gotten an offer.
I really enjoyed the 07 Uvas Creek about 6 months ago, haven’t tried any since. It seemed alot of 07’s were shutting down. I may open the 08 Crimson Clover tonight since it seems to be drinking well.
Really liked an '06 SCM about a year ago that reminds me a lot of your note on this 2007, especially the mint. Then followed up with an '07 a few months later buy found it relatively closed and tight at that point. I’ll probably wait until fall on another but I’m glad to hear that its drinking well at this point.
“the grippiness that kicks in on the finish.” Bingo. I found the '07 Santa Cruz to be the most tannic Stefania I’ve had, but it’s been a while since I popped that bottle. Great stuff in there, but I only have three of those, so I’m holding back a little more than normal.
I’ve had the '07 Uvas a few times, and it’s never disappointed. I think I’ve already buzzed through half of that six-pack, and I have a hard time keeping my hands of them.
As for the '08s, I had the Santa Cruz a couple weeks back and that was just singing after a 45-minute decant. So good we popped the Crimson Clover, no decant. It’s a bigger Cab and showed a ton of fruit early on that fell into balance with the last glass. Great now, but probably give it some air, or wait 1-2 years.
It would be really nice if we could get wine out to everyone who wanted it in the quantities they would like but given our vineyard and production situations we’re just very limited on what we can do. We’re now farming 90%+ of the fruit we use ourselves (Harvest Moon is our only purchased fruit now) and we can’t just bump up production. It’s a long slow process of finding the right land owner to work with, installing or converting a vineyard to our methods and bringing the grapes in. Our harvests average 1.4 tons/acre so we’re further limited by the way we farm and the AVA we work in.
All that’s just a long way of saying we’re not trying to be a-holes with the allocation system we have, it’s just the best we’ve been able to come up with. We’re pretty understanding about personal situations too. We have lots of people on the list who have been impacted by the economy and if they drop us a note we hold their spot and allocation for them until they get back on their feet. It’s a pretty personal business for us, there are just five of us total so it’s not like special requests go off to some admin somewhere for review and then ‘owner approval’. They come right to me. 
This drank so well this past weekend. Freshly fruited but with plenty of depth and still that bit of mint. Very nice.
I have a lot of love for Stefania wines. The Haut Tubee and all of the cabs are delicious – and the wines are exceptional QPRs in my book. I will also say that the service from Paul and Stef is top notch.
Completely agree. The '09 Haute Tubee was the wine of the day on Thanksgiving among a bevy of other bottles for the entire family of winos and non-winos alike.
Popped my first Haut Tubee recently and thought it was a fun wine and very good QPR. Haven’t opened any of my '08 Crimson Clover yet but am forward to doing so this winter. Paul has been a pleasure to interact with, which makes purchasing even easier.
Andy