Just finished a winemaker dinner with Graeme MacDonald, who poured his first two vintages of To Kalon vineyard Cabernet - 2009 and 2010. Last year, my wife and I went to a charity release tasting of Cali 2009 Cabs. The usual suspects. Dominus, Paradigm, Realm, KAmen, Krug, many others. The MacDonald 09 cab was as good as the best of those and the 2010, with a 24 hour decant, was even better. Aromatics of red fruit, vanilla, allspice. A palate of red fruit and chocolate, with spices. Great balance, incredible smoothness and a velvet mouth feel. Long finish that ends with tanins coating the inside of the teeth, presaging long aging potential. But Wow, with the decant, it’s drinkable now. The family has owned the vineyard since the 1950s and the grapes were sold to Mondavi. The family recently decided to retain a portion of the grapes for their own use. I signed up for this mailing list blind on a recommendation a few months ago and I’m glad I did. Nah Nah, I’m on the list before you sign up tomorrow.
Corrected Tuesday morning - the grapes were sold to Mondavi. Prior version implied that the vineyard was sold to Mondavi.
I do not know, but it has been a while since I have tasted such well balanced, luscious wine from a new venture. As I consider it in the clarity of the morning sun, with a clear head, I would say thatnthis wine was better than most, and possibly all, of what we tasted last year at the charity event in Yountville last year. It is based upon powerful To Kalon fruit, but it lacks the “nail gun to your temple” fierceness of some of the other wine coming from that vineyard. That is replaced with a bit more finesse and smoothness, without being anything close to subtle.
Only time will tell how great these wines truly are and how special last night was.
It was the first ever wine dinner for Graeme and the first official tasting of his wines.
He is so passionate, intelligent and down-to-earth and it comes through in his wines.
Graeme and Sarah put together a great package of information on To-Kalon including a detailed map and history. One of the things that struck me about the night is that in this era of Consulting Winemakers, Vineyard Gurus and points there are very few family owned and operated wineries in Napa that preserve tradition and continuity. We were extremely lucky to have two in attendance with Graeme and Alex Kongsgaard (who flew in from Napa for the dinner to support Graeme who is one of his best friends). It should also be noted that MacDonald Vineyards is a partnership run by Graeme and his brother Alex.
On to the wines.
We tasted the 2009 and 2010 vintages - the common thread in both wines is the fineness of the tannins. The wines are balanced and completely in tune. For my taste the ripeness walks the fine line of getting everything you can out of the vintage and vineyard without going over-the-top simply because you can. All of the classic Cab flavors came through.
Last night I preferred the 2009 while some preferred the 2010. We all agreed the 2010 would last an eternity.
Only 22 cases of the 2009 and 92 cases of the 2010. They will be released in fall. You can sign up on the website:
In addition to the MacDonald Vineyards wines we drank a number of amazing California Cabs from the likes of Corison, Diamond Creek and Dunn. I would definitely put Graemes wines in this category.
Lastly many of us at the dinner would not have know about Graeme if he had not worked for Abe at Scholium Project. Graeme mentioned several times how important Abe’s mentoring was and that he could not have done this without him.
For those that want to learn more Doug Wilder offered up a free copy of his article on MacDonald Vineyards.
Very pleased to read how splendidly last evening went. Would have loved to have been in attendance. We always felt Graeme would produce wines of distinction as that just seems his character, though we didn’t know about his Cabernet lineage!
Really wonderful wines. As they were so young, the 2010 in particular still had lots of oak, but super well-done, kind of buttery and smooth, not contributing any really noticeable wood tannins. Just outstanding stuff actually. Big and ripe but super tasty - the kind of thing Napa does really well.
BTW, these folks actually LIVE in the To-Kalon vineyard! Since their family has owned the property so long, someone built a little house right in their portion of the vineyard and that’s where they have to live.
Damn!
Thanks for putting it together Robert. And best of luck to Graeme and Co. on the venture.
I haven’t seen buzz like this for a new, high-end, Napa Cab in some time. It takes a lot to get me to pay attention to in this segment (a plug from Tegan will do it). But I have questions:
It’s To Kalon, of course it’ll be pricey. Performing a simple “To Kalon cabernet” search for any vintage in the basic version of wine-searcher yields a range of $65 - $120 for the first two pages. Entering 2007 for vintage yields a much higher range, thanks to the inclusion of Hobbs, Tor Kenward, Karl Lawrence, and Schrader which are all ~$150+ (realizing some are auction prices).
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