It is interesting that California (unlike Bordeaux) does not seem to have a vintage of the century every other year. Maybe it is because the vintages are more uniform so that fewer really stick out. But it got me thinking what do people think is the greatest vintage in California for Cabernet.
I first started thinking of classic vintages like 1968 (of which I have had almost none), 1970, 1974 and 1978. But, more and more I began gravitating to 1991. I have not had as many wines from that vintage as I would like, but wines like Ridge Monte Bello, Chateau Montelena and Togni are about as good if not better than anything I have had from these top estates.
What are your thoughts? Any recent vintages that will be successors to these legends?
Well, it’s ancient history now but I thought 1975 was just about an ideal vintage for balance and longevity. I haven’t focused on recent vintages, because I’m not a big fan of the style of most modern California cabs, but like you, I thought 1991 was very strong and most recently I liked the few 1997s I tried.
I think there is something to the idea that there is a greater level of consistency in Napa vis-a-vis Bordeaux. I’m relatively young, so the earliest vintage I tasted upon release (not counting the yellow tail and basket-bound chianti we drank for “nice” dinners in college) is probably 2005. But as far as bottles with some age on them, I keep thinking I’ve found the best vintage from the 90s to stock up on only to have an even better bottle from a different year. I’ve ping-ponged from 94, to 95, to 97, to 91. Then, most recently I tried my first aged Dunn – a 93 that was fantastic. Maybe the trick is to match the producer style to the vintage, but I’ve found that there are fantastic wines made most years in Napa, with maybe some variability as to which producers are most successful in a given year.
California Cabs from the 70’s and 80’s are some of my favorite wines and I’ve been lucky to taste them frequently. My vote goes to 1974, 1978, and 1985. 1991 has achieved lofty heights but is not as consistent. I find 1997 wines over extracted in general. Of the nineties 1994 and 1996 come to mind as having provided extreme pleasure.
For me the Cali Cabs from the 60s, 70s, and 80s are the pinnacle of winemaking in CA. A point was brought up earlier on how some producers do well with so called off vintages and there is a lot to that. For example in 95 Beringer made perhaps their best PR cab and of the vintages of Opus One that I have tried, 95 is my favorite.
For me, the old Mondavi Reserves from 74, 78, and 85 stand up to the great wines from anywhere. BV GdL from both 68 and 69 are sublime, they cannot be anything but Cali wines, but they are alive with bright red fruits as opposed to the dark fruits you see today. The Ric Forman Sterling wines from 73,74, and 75 are still going strong. Overall, the quality of vintages for me (wines from most producers being great) include:
Yeah, 78 has to be up there and 85, but from the 1990s, I would say 91, 92, 94 and 95.
It has to do with style as much as anything. The 1997s were good when they came out and drinkable immediately and got high scores, but they haven’t really developed into spectacular wines IMO and I would drink them up fast. I had one last night and it’s already past, whereas the same producer’s wines from say, 1994, have aged far better. Luckily, I don’t have a lot of 1997s because we drank them early.
And as always, a lot has to do with the specific producer.
But more, it has to do with the proliferation of wineries. There are many many more wineries now than there were, and some that used to be around no longer are. The new ones that popped up tended to do Cabs in the style that was getting praise and they often hired the same clutch of winemakers, so the style of wine really shifted as ripeness and alcohol headed upwards.
Huh, cool. I love Forman wines and didn’t know he made those early Sterling wines. I’ve had the '74 Sterling Cab and thought it was drinking great. I’m sitting on some more '74 Sterling Cabs and Merlots. Even more interested to re-visit those now that I know Ric was the winemaker.
Having moved to California, and become completely enamored with Cabernet Sauvignon, in 1970, I’ve gotten to taste all the great ones. There were only two disappointing vintages in the 1970’s – 1971 and 1972, but even there, the Ridge “Montebello’s”, the 1971 Ridge “Eisele”, and the 1971 Freemark Abbey “Bosche” were standouts that prove the exception.
An interestinig question Howard. It would seem to me that given the rather notable stylistic changes over the years with California cabernets, it is not really proper to rank any of the recent years as potential “vintages of the century” until we see how the wines evolve with some significant bottle age, as some of the changes (like much later harvesting) may certainly affect adversely the ability of the wines to age gracefully. I liked folks’ mention of the 1991s, but having done a smallish retrospective of the vintage a few years back, I am not convinced that there is enough consistent “aged” greatness here to insert this vintage into the top rankings of cabernet vintages out west. Same can be said for 1987, which has not aged anywhere near as well as I thought it would earlier, and to my mind falls far short of the 1985s and 1984s. Of these two vintages, I cannot decide which ones I like better, but am starting to lean towards the 1984s. However, as George mentioned above, the decade of the 1970s produced so many stellar vintages of cabernet that it is hard (yet?) to really envision either 1984 or 1985 ultimately reaching the same lofty levels as 1970, 1973, 1974, 1975 and 1978 (my personal favorites from the '70s). I have gone back and forth with these vintages of the '70s for years trying to decide how I would rank them in a personal hierarchy, with the vintages shifting positions over the last several years (as vintages like 1970 started to fade just a bit and vintages like 1975 started to finally reach their apogees), but all of them still providing really great drinking.
I think today I would rank them 1978, 1975, 1974, 1970 and 1973- but, they are all so good that it is really splitting hairs to say I like 1978 better than 1974 in general and more appropriate to talk about individual wines in each vintage. But, the 1978s are so flawlessly balanced that I think I would now give them a very, very slight nod over the also generously ripe 1974s. 1975 is a completely different style of vintage from those two- bigger, more structured and slower to unfold, so that these days the very best wines of the '75 vintage (those from Heitz, Mayacamas, Sterling, Phelps, Diamond Creek, Mount Eden and the like) are still really a bit too young for primetime drinking and will be better with even further bottle age! The most ready 1975 I have had in the last couple of years of the major wines was the Ridge Monte Bello, which was all velvety charm and glorious terroir (but, maybe my bottle was slightly advanced?). Both the 1973s and 1970s are generally a bit further along their evolutionary arcs, and while one can still hit glorious bottles from either year (1973 Sterling Reserve was just stellar a couple of weeks ago and fresh as a daisy), others can be a bit “gently structured” these days and seemingly just starting to slide down the far side of their respective plateaus of peak maturity. But, that said, the 1970 Mayacamas probably remains the single greatest cabernet based wine I have ever tasted and that wine is still at its absolute zenith (and still a bit too young in magnum!) and will be magical for decades to come, so with a wine like that one can get a glimpse back in time and remember just how good the 1970s were fifteen or twenty years ago- when everyone was hoping that the 1974s and 1978s would be cut from the same otherworldly cloth of stunning quality as the 1970s! I keep hoping that Charles Banks & partners got a pile of 1970 cabernet when they bought Mayacamas and that they drink enough of these bottles to realize that if they change anything- anything!- at Mayacamas, history will probably come to view them fifty years from now as the biggest schmucks to come along during this epoch of California wine… they now hold in their hands one of the absolute crown jewels of cabernet to be found anywhere in the world of wine- hope they are as up to the responsibility as caretakers of Mayacamas as the Travers were for all those years.
Well said, John. You have inspired me to open a 1973 Sterling “Reserve” for my upcoming wine dinner at Acquerello, and save the '73 Conn Creek for another occasion . . .
This thread is a good sales pitch for buying magnums and larger formats. Many of these great vintages are past their peak in 750’s, while larger formats hold worlds of possibilities.
