after being enamored with the bacon fat syrah that brad shared with me i put in an order with john for 3 bottles of that and one bottle of three of his other wines to give them all a test drive.
i popped the 05 klamath cuvee the day after i got it i was so excited. it had a good balance of fruit and spice and was very drinkable. a good value for $15.
on thanksgiving i popped the 06 zin. i cant remember if it was the regular zin or the tributary. either way, it was pretty freakin delicious. full of brambly fruits and black pepper. very enjoyable and was head to head with the 04 st cosme gigondas for wine of the night.
tonight, i opened up an 03 donato d’angelo aglianico which was sadly an off bottle. so i grabbed for the cabot cab for salvation!
2006 cabot cabernet - smoke, green peppercorn, cassis on the nose. big time juicy fruit with sour cherry, raspberry, and cranberry on the palate. more peppercorn and maybe some pine. spicy finish and good acid. overall a tasty cab in a more european style. good work john!
overall. the klamath and the cab are good solid wines. the zin is a step up and one of the better zins i have had in a while. mostly because it has balance and freshness which many zins lack. at the top of the heap is his syrah.
Ironic that you posted on these. I have also picked up some Cabot wines recently and had similar experiences. Shared the Klamath Cuvee with my coworkers a couple of weeks ago, a very nice blend that showed both red and black fruits and nice spice and pepper notes. I had the Cab with some tri tip pieces tonight and it tasted great out of the bottle but now after a couple of hours the oak is starting to stand out more.
I see the oak too, but as of right now (bottle open about an hour) it isn’t too much. That said the bottle is already 3/4 gone and won’t make it a couple more hours!
With some air this has put on weight and become a little darker fruit flavor wise in profile. A little black cherry and anise. Still nice peppercorn. Very nice!
John, how many vintages of cab have you produced? Curious about ageability on this. Not a whole lot of tannin, more acid driven structure.
Am a very big fan of the Cabot Syrahs! Still have a horizontal of all their 2006 Syrahs, and an older Kimberlys I look forward to sharing with friends. Any idea when we will see the 2007s?
I started producing Cabernet (from a vineyard I planted in 98- own rooted vines) in 2001. The 06 is similar in profile to the 03, which I had a bottle of a week ago and is still very bright fruited. The 06 was aged in mostly older French barrels with 25% new- 22 months. I generally press the BDX varietals off the skins pretty early, and we don’t get a whole lot of tannin from that vineyard (alluvial soils).
The Tributary Zin is a little bigger in the fruit department, and has 20% Syrah added to it for additional peppery spice and complexity. It was aged on the same barrels as the Humboldt, but with 20% new Hungarian, which gives it a little baking spice on the finish.
Not sure about the Bacon Fat bottling again. The 08’s have similar characters as the 06’s with the smoked meats and black pepper but they are still pretty early in their development. We’ll see.