New TRB Cab - killer- STONE THE CROWS

Rarely have enough time to post about such things, but thought a quick PSA and missive regarding this kickass new project with Thomas Brown as head winemaking guru is worthy of your attention.

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Here in St. Helena and elsewhere in the Valley, a well-known spot for hiking, fishing and kayaking (not swimming, it’s the local water supply) is at Lake Hennessey, a small offshoot of Lake Berryessa. It’s suprisingly close - turn on Old Howell Mountain Road (where Meadowood is) and keep going straight on Conn Valley Road. Not too far past Seavey, you come across a tiny road to your left, and in front of you is Lake Hennessey. The locals park here and start walking.

Up the road however, perched on a fairly steep hillside over looking the lake, is the tiny Three Twins Vineyard. This is the spot where the fruit for Stone the Crows originates from, and is made up at Outpost by Thomas. It’s a typical Cabernet-heavy Bordeaux blend in the vineyard, I believe.

This wine is fantastic. Thomas makes a lot of different styles - this is more in the Schrader/Maybach realm of things, to my palate. Gorgeous, long, silky, ripe but not over the top, with dense rich flavors that always make me think of drinking dark colors. Drinking deep red. Anyway, it is definitely something that should be on your radar for those that drink collect and love these styles of wines.

Price is something everyone always asks about - I dont know, but I have the feeling its not going to be stratospheric. Production is tiny, and they do have a mailing list- I know I’m on it! Not sure when first release is, but if its drinking like this sample I tried, they can pull the trigger when ready!!

http://www.stonethecrowswine.com/


Stefan

Disclaimer: I’m ITB and may or may not ever have this wine to sell. But I hope so.

Thanks for the heads up.

At this moment, 56 views of this thread. I wonder how many of them went directly to the website to sign up?

Yes, I did too.

Thanks Stefan. It’s interesting that this wine comes from Three Twins Vineyard and Sine Qua Non has The Third Twin Vineyard. Potential for confusion?

My pleasure. I have at least 2-3 more I want to write on, just never enough time…

On the vineyard name - Hm, I suppose, but hopefully not…the legal stuff is a headache for sure.

Thanks for the note Stefan, I signed up as well

Myriad released a Three Twins Vineyard Cabernet starting with the 2009 vintage, I seem to recall that Mike Smith thinks this vineyard has rock-star potential. Mike and TRB have a lot of overlap in fruit. It will be interesting to compare the two winemakers side by side TRB is one of the current high profile names and I think Mike has great potential, but a very short track record.

"**2009 Myriad Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon Three Twins Vineyard
The Three Twins Vineyard is the first time that Myriad Cellars has worked with a vineyard from planting to bottle. Our 2009 version is the first commercial crop off these perfectly situated Conn Valley vines. Located just above the shores of Lake Hennessey, these young vines came out with their ‘A Game’ producing a wine with a tantalizing fruit spectrum. Dark ruby with a violet tinge, scents of black cherry pie, flint stone, Kona coffee and tobacco emanate from the glass. A medium bodied mid palate preludes a rush of fine grained tannins lifting the overall back bone of the wine into a finish gushing with blue fruits, Asian spices, cola notes and barrel tannin.

A one hour decant will put this wine into a nice place upon release, it will further fill out it’s frame for 2-4 yrs and drink well up to 10 yrs.**"

I was hoping Mike might chime in as well on that. I am fairly certain it is the same. Great minds think alike when it comes to vineyards I suppose~!

Wow…how many wines is TRB making now??

Does he have ''ghost makers" like famous writers have ghost writers?

He has a lot, but he’s got one thing I think that makes it do-able- they are all made in one place (Outpost), which is unusual and I would think adds a lot more control to the winemaking and direction-giving to his assistants and whatnot. Much harder if you’re runing around to 3 or 5 or 8 differnet properties all the time!

Technically they’re made two places - Outpost (Cabs and Chardonnay) and Black Sears (Pinot Noir). They are a stones throw away from each other though.

Quite right. Forgot that. I got married at Black Sears!

The vineyard is located in a tiny little part of Conn Valley which, in my opinion, is AVA-worthy. I call it “Greenfield Ridge,” named after the road most of the vineyards sit off of. Within about a square half-mile, there is Three Twins, the estate vineyard for Parallel, Fairchild’s “Sigaro,” Bonds “Melbury,” a vineyard that goes to Caymus Special Select, the home vineyard of Lewis, and Seavey. All of them are right across or above each other and they all can see Lake Hennessey from some point on their properties. The lake view is the key, as the breeze comes off it in the afternoon and cools the vineyards in question, allowing them to come off at reasonable alcohol levels and with very masculine flavors. The soils are well-drained rock. Most of the rest of Conn valley gets awfully hot.

This is a pic from “Sigaro” looking below to “Seavey.” Lake Hennessey is to the left of this image but blocked by a tree from where I stood when I took the pic. A very pretty area.

I have never seen Mike post here.

Mike Officer? If so, he’s posted here, just not in a while

Mike Smith, Todd.

Is it too gauche to talk price? If this is another $125 Napa Cab, it’ll be tough to get excited about it.

That would be a hard sell with the Myriad @ $50 of course Mike said this was for the inaugural release and price would go up in the future.
It seems the wines TRB owned releases are at good price points I assume this is done by eliminating the 3 tier system and selling direct to consumer thru mailing lists exclusively. If you want your wine marketed by retailers the price almost doubles but you can potentually move a lot more wine.

Roy, great photo, thanks for posting it.

Where did you get this idea?

General feeling and looking at pricing of wines.
In general if a producer sells to wholesaler for $50, he sells to retailer for $75 who sells to consumer for $100. In my opinion these are reasonable margins for wholesaler and retailer to make. Especially when the majority of wines they sell are a a much lower price point. If a winery sells exclusively through direct sales you eliminate 2 middlemen but also a lot of marketing and exposure.

Brent I build houses for a living, I have never been in retail(except as a restaurant manager/captain/waiter) are these percentages wrong?