No love for Classic Napa Cabernet?

WINE TALK
21

flirtysmile Hmmmm; Check out my avatar… [snort.gif]



Cheers! [wink.gif]
Marshall

22

I have to disagree with the premises of the original post. California cab isn’t discussed that much on here, but whenever it is, everyone falls all over themselves to proclaim that only like the old guard classic traditional producers.

It’s like if you ask white hipsters about hip hop music, and they all immediately give you that rehearsed spiel about how they only like the “old school hip hop,” and all the stuff that’s popular in recent years is garbage.

If you haven’t seen the SWPL entry about this, it’s priceless: #116 Black Music that Black People Don’t Listen to Anymore | Stuff White People Like An excerpt:

If you are good at concealing laughter and contempt, you should ask a white person about “Real Hip Hop.” They will quickly tell you about how they don’t listen to “Commercial Hip Hop” (aka music that black people actually enjoy), and that they much prefer “Classic Hip Hop.”

“I don’t listen to that commercial stuff. I’m more into the Real Hip Hop, you know? KRS One, Del Tha Funkee Homosapien, De La Soul, Wu Tang, you know, The Old School.”

Calling this style of music ‘old school’ is considered an especially apt name since the majority of people who listen to it did so while attending old schools such as Dartmouth, Bard, and Williams College.

But, having just had a bit of fun with that, I do actually love the traditional California cab producers. Mount Eden, Ridge, Mayacamas and so forth.

23

they actually really like Kendrick Lamar and JCole as well!

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Heitz, Ridge, Togni, Dunn to name a few. And Corison a newer discovery for me of an old school style.

25

Ditto…add in Caymus SS.

Colin [cheers.gif]

26

My favorite Classic Napa Cabernets that are great values include:
Ridge Monte Bello
Mount Eden
Domaine Eden
Alexander Valley Vineyards
Alexander’s Crown
Kenwood Jack London

and if you happen to want something that actually comes from the Napa Valley, is good, tastes like where it comes from, is very fairly priced and never ever ever mentioned on wine boards:
Charles Krug

and if you don’t mind a negociant wine with an idiot-savant name and label:
Educated Guess

Dan Kravitz

27

I certainly don’t have the tasting experience of some of the folks on this board like King Cab, but my hypothesis is:

  1. Folks on this board like taking about the “shiny new object” and the old cabs just don’t have the story associated with them that everyone wants to post about.

  2. Other red wines, e.g. Rhones, Zins, have gotten markedly better over the last 10-15 years, so the “red dollar” is being spent more widely than just on the old school Cali cabs.

  3. Cab prices are getting up there with the major producers which is forcing consumers to think twice before separating from their hard earned $. I can buy 1 bottle of well know Cali cab at $145/bottle, or I can buy 2 or 3 bottles of Zin, Rhone, or lesser known cabs at the same price.

All that said, I’m a regular on the Montelena Estate and Ridge lists, and even have some Stag’s Leap and other old school bottles in my collection. It’s a great time to be a wine drinker!

28

I’m still a huge Heitz fan especially the trailside. The 97 is a benchmark wine for me. Love the 99 Bella Oaks as well. Still drink Mondavi and Beringer Reserve as well.

Neal- see if you can find a bottle of Drinkward Peschon. I think you might like the style. Very balanced and a bit reserved . Extended air brings out terrific complexity and balance. I think it’s well worth the $59.

29

Disagree with the premise. Mad love from this board on old school Napa Cab. A quick search for Heitz gives you 1200+ hits. Montelena yields more than 2000, Mayacamas at 1200+, and so on. Perhaps elsewhere they’re waxing poetic about the latest fruit bombs from Napa, but here is a different story.

30

I love the music analogy, but I think that you are wrong about the preferences of this board (or at least their real preferences - what they claim is another matter). Examples of non-classic Cali Cabs that get the love include Myriad, Quivet, Match, Alpha Omega, Sojourn, EMH, Maybach, Drinkward Peschon, Seven Stones, Kapcsandy, Quilceda Creek, etc etc etc.

1 Like
31

Daniel, you’re spot on. Not saying that the old cabs don’t get discussed, but it’s typically the ones you mention that get most of the attention (and deservedly so!).

32

I would seriously question whether you can discern what posters’ “real preferences” are, at least if it is distinct from what they state on the board. As Bill Moore noted above, we can use the search function to at least get an idea of where the board’s interests lie, even if discussion frequency is not an exact reflection of personal pallets. Below is a ranking of Cab producers mentioned in this thread, by number of hits. Of course, many of these wineries produce wines other than Cabernet, and I note where a brief scan of the results reveals a lot of non-cabernet mentions. Also, I included Ridge even though its not Napa; it was also tricky, so I did “monte bello,” which definitely results in an undercount:

Maybach: 2279 hits
Montelena: 2183 hits (but a non-trival number of these are about chardonnay)
Mondavi: 1987 hits
Monte Bello (Ridge): 1714 hits
Myriad: 1514 hits
Dominus: 1405 hits
Quilceda: 1396 hits
Heitz: 1351 hits (some chardonnay)
Mayacamas: 1284 hits (some chardonnay)
Beringer: 1163 hits
Sojourn: 1147 hits (but a lot of these are about pinot noir)
Caymus: 1103 hits
Kapscandy: 1092 hits
Dunn: 1001 hits
Quivet: 674 hits
Silver Oak: 661 hits
Seven Stones: 541 hits
Corison: 531 hits
Alpha Omega: 526 hits
Diamond CreeK: 477 hits
EMH: 395
Paradigm: 374 hits
Drinkward Peschon: 250 hits
Groth: 161 hits

From this list, it looks to me like this board’s interest in discussing Napa Valley cabernet producers is pretty evenly split between traditional producers and more modern producers.

I also agree with Chris that it sometimes approaches the level of parody how often people feel the need to precede their posts with a disclaimer about their “traditional, restrained, classic, old world style” preferences.

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And the whole split between “Traditional” and “Modern” based on historical precedent does not really apply these days. Kapcsandy and Vine Hill Ranch are more traditional in style than, say, Mondavi Reserve or even the modern incarnation of BV GdlT. Heitz and Chappellet are in the middle and who knows what Mayacamas will evolve into? I keep hearing rumors Mondavi has finally got religion on To Kalon and is going to start splitting it out every vintage now as a single-vineyard bottling. Exciting times in Napa.

34

Jay T, awesome post.

If it were NOT for the newer style options (mainly post-2001), I would not be drinking Napa Cabernet at the level I do. I actually might not be a wine drinker at all. Bold but true words.

1000 of those Maybach mentions are mine… :slight_smile:

35

You don’t hear much about Smith Madrone or Farella-Park but both make very good to outstanding classic Napa Cabs. And of course, Robert Craig, Hess, and Mt Veeder Reserve’s.

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I know that people have shifted away from CA Cabernet to some degree,

How can one possibly know that? Unless of course “we” refers to the writer and his spouse.

Sales figures and production figures indicate that plenty of people are still buying CA Cabs.

Chris made an excellent and hilarious point - the hip hop thing is very much alive in many of the NYC wine stores - the guy with the scraggly beard and laid back attitude is happy to tell me all about some fantastic wine that’s “real” wine, unlike all the commercial stuff people drink. It’s even funnier when I’ve visited the region a few times before the sage was legally allowed to drink.

Many people are drinking lots of CA Cabs. As MikeP said - there are more choices than ever these days. And there’s plenty of other wine from CA as well.

BV has changed in recent years with Rolland doing some consulting, but their Rutherford bottling was for a long time a good value and decent wine. Ditto Beringer Knights Valley, although as John pointed out, it’s sweeter than ever these days, too bad. Raymond Reserve was a good one too, although I haven’t had it in a few years.

Buehler has amped up too, which is a shame. But Monticello, Steltzner, Surh Luchtel are a few sub-$50 wines that were always good. Chateau Potelle, which I believe has been sold and is no longer producing was another good one. And those are only from Napa. There are many more all over the state.

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PXL_20211226_021742960.jpg
Christmas got all jumbled up this year due to some illness/quarantining, so I ended up opening a gift bottle without the donor. Originally we had planned to planned to drink this 2014 Raymond ‘Reserve’ Cabernet Sauvignon [Napa] at a small dinner party, but carefully laid plans and all that… If I remember correctly, 2014 was a short crop in the region, and the label notes only 682 barrels were made. I saw a label today for the current release 2019 which noted some 1500 barrels were made, which I suppose must be a more normal number. This 14.5% abv is from the Boisset empire of wines, which is increasingly expanding in California. In my observation, the wines are widely available out West, but this is the first one I can recall actually tasting. Over three days, I get a nose of black fruit, balanced oak (despite the massive amounts it gets), oregano. If there’s RS, it’s not obvious to me - it’s not gloppy/sweet like some of the new wave blends with marketing muscle behind them. To me, the upfront fruit in the tip of the nose really identifies it as California. Low acid, soft tannin, medium finish (20-25 seconds?), no sediment in my bottle. This was a gift, so I didn’t know the price until a Winesearcher lookup a few seconds ago, so I suppose this is a fair value in the context of Boardwalk/Parkplace zone of Napa cab now. A commercially available, popularly styled wine that will be enjoyed by enthusiasts and gluggers. I gave this multi vineyard blend (and a rather fat spattery cowboy ribeye) the same A- grade.

This is a thread which deserves some revisiting.

38

Love Smith Madrone.

Recently had a bottle of DiCostanzo’s DiCo (second wine) that I would describe as somewhat old school in style, too. And quite good at it.

39

Visited Mount Eden last month. Very impressed by their wines, esp. the Mount Eden Cabernet. Of the California wines in my cellar, the bulk are (in order of quantity) from

Ridge
Chateau Montelena
Stony Hill
Mount Eden
Mayacamas (newest vintage 2007)
Togni

40

That’s how I feel about Forman, it used to be a big splurge classic Napa for special occasions, now it seems like a value play.
Also it doesn’t get much action here but Stony Hill makes a very nice very classic style cab, I hope it stays that way after the buyout.