Posted from CellarTracker
They misspelled the name of the road. I’d demand a refund.
Ian does that to minimize picayune customers. ![[snort.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/b/bdc3944606213c4dca6c1169cf0a166c8bc4f8c9.gif "snort.gif"){kind=small}
Great note!
I have never had their wine. I better get on my game!
Love the P’Tit Paysan LE P’TIT PAPE. Great wine & QPR.
Thanks, Mike. We made wine off the Vidovich vineyard for two years (14 and 15) before moving over to Fellom Ranch in 17 and 18. It really is incredible ground for Cabernet, and we’ve had great response to this wine. We just switched to the 2015 vintage for release. We also brought in some cab this year for ourselves and for the vineyard owners from the old Durney site in Carmel Valley that has shown every bit the equal of the fruit off the Montebello Ridge (thanks for the spelling correction, Craig, we’re aware but didn’t think it was worth going through the relabeling miasma), so that’s something to look forward to for Cabernet lovers.
One theme in California wine that I think is woefully under-represented in the pantheon of great California wines are the coastal mountain Cabernet Sauvignon Vineyards planted in the late sixties through early 80s. The Fellom Ranch block we get was planted in 1980 and 1982 from budwood off the Beringer property. The Massa (formerly Durney) vineyard was planted from budwood given to them by the Mirassous in 1970 and 71. We think that budwood is off the La Questa, which are rumored to be cuttings from pre-phylloxera Margaux and the source for most pre-1980 cab vineyards locally. It’s very different stuff than the modern Cabernet genetics, and we see a certain continuity between the four older properties we work with locally that I think is a result of that massale selection – but that’s extrapolation from rumors and remembrances. There’s not a lot of hard information on those vineyards from that era.
I just saw a post that Jeff Emery/Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyards is working with Bates Ranch again this year, which is great news for anyone that’s had any of the Cabernets SCMV made off that property between 1979 and 1994.
Ian
Ian, are you sure about the dates on the SCMV Bates Ranch production? I could have sworn that I had a terrific 1978 SCMV Bates Ranch about 15 years ago, but you know the region and its history much, much better than I do.
Yes, '78 was the first SCMV Bates.
That’s pretty exciting getting grapes from the old Durney place. I’ve only had a couple mature Durney Cabs, but they were excellent. I remember reading the common refrain a couple decades ago that Monterrey was a crap place for Cab, while tasting excellent mature and current release ones. Same sort of BS pervaded that people didn’t know how to make PN. Most of the '70s PNs I’ve had have been great, while most of the well regarded '05s have been amateur hour garbage, IMO.
Thanks for the tasting note, Wes!!
I also am grateful for Mr Ian Brand chiming in with additional information!!!
I still have a few Ahlgrens Cab bottles from the Bates site and when the corks are game, those are real treats.
Off by a year!
Some vintages of the Ahlgren wines are absolutely stunning.
The refrain that Monterey was bad for cab was because the cab was planted in the Salinas Valley in the wind on california sprawl. Not a good combination. You can get some decent cabs when you get into Southern Monterey County, but so far I haven’t found anything exceptional, though I have heard other winemakers discuss particular blocks with potential.
Both old Durney and Joullian cabs can be pretty exceptional after about 20 years (Cachagua Valley, not the Salinas Valley, much warmer and less windy, more akin to parts of the Santa Cruz Mountains like the way Corralitos has more in common with the Salinas Valley). I think a lot of that has to do with how they were made. I’ve heard stories of how the old Durney cabs were treated and it wasn’t gentle winemaking. My experience with Carmel Valley is that if you go for power, you get almost too much and there’s a lot of baby fat to dispense with.
This year we sold Cab off various blocks of the Massa place to Jaimee Motley, Ryme Cellars, Raj Parr, Benevolent Neglect, Brea Wines, Riley Hubbard for her Hubba Wines project, Folktale and Partage Wines (Mark Bright’s project), I made a bit of the prime blocks for myself, and we did six or seven lots for the Massas. Preliminary reports from everybody are positive, but 18 is shaping up to be one of the easier years to make wine. Like 07 or 12 in that regard. But it will be a lot of fun to see how some very skilled and practiced hands and some newcomers deal with the place. I think we’ll see some smoking wines and, like with Enz and the Cienega Valley, people will be paying attention.