I attended a group dinner and volunteered to bring the wine. It’s our Club Restaurant (ELEVATED DINING — THE MCLEMORE RESORT ON LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN, GEORGIA). For those from Atlanta, Nashville, Huntsville, Birmingham, Knoxville, etc. come check us out! I was a little sheepish about this bottle - it was a gift and I know how some of my wine friends who were attending might be a bit underwhelmed. Suffice to say the bottle was well received.
3 Liter Big Boy signed by Chuck. Decanted and consumed by a group of roughly 12 people. Dark purple with still a lot of primary fruit but also a lot of leather. Just barely enough tannin to make it drinkable for me. For my palate, there is an imbalance with a very fruit forward profile and not quite enough tannin to balance the wine. Not withstanding that, what tannin is there is ripe and lingers nicely but it is very subtle in the context of the whole wine. At the end of dinner not a drop left - bottle empty, decanters empty, glasses empty.
I went to my CT consumption history and realized that I probably have only bought about a case of Caymus in my lifetime - with all but 2 bottles from the 90s. My Silver Oak history is about the same - I have a vertical in the cellar of the Alexander Valley from the 2000’s that was a gift but otherwise haven’t bought any SO since the 99 vintage. Obviously these are two classic steak house bottles. And apparently from my experience last night your average wine drinker likes them - a lot. Even Chef said it was good albeit he is not the wine snob that I tend to be - maybe I would rather characterize myself as having a more discerning palate.
Like many on this board, their rather ubiquitous appeal sometimes seems like an enigma, how can such a rather plebeian wine have such great appeal. And we all know of or have met people who really think Caymus is the best wine out there. On Cellartracker the 40th Anniversary bottle has almost 30000 bottles and is number six in quantity. So there is a lot of this stuff in peoples cellars.
A few thoughts - although I feel like this wine appeals a bit to the baby taste it has no rough edges. It is kind of like that nondescript champagne that goes down like a cold beer on a hot summer day. It is a tad sweet for my taste and also as I mentioned a bit out of balance but it does have some finish that lingers modestly and is not the least bit off putting. There is some mild complexity with some earthy notes. And it is very food friendly.
I guess the next time I do this it will be time for the SO Vertical!
I remember the Caymus’ of old, wines of depth and complexity. This was neither. It was served blind, and I thought it was a sub $15 commercial bottling, notable for its sweetness (it tasted as if someone had added a spoonful of sugar to each glass). The host was embarrassed enough to run down to the cellar and get a bottle Bordeaux.
I would not have bothered to write a note, but for the Caymus name, and the astonishing price tag. This is to date the worst (healthy) wine I have tasted this year.
It seems that Caymus is around 10g/L of residual sugar - half that of Meiomi - another very popular wine. For me the sweetness of the Caymus was not overwhelming but was noticeable. No one else complained. FWIW, I found the 50th anniversary edition less appealing - there was absolutely no finish whatsoever - at least the 40th anniversary did have some tannin! Your experience with sub $15 wines is better than mine! - usually I find really inexpensive Cabs to have very sharp edges - bitter and harsh. This wine had none of that for me. As you can tell from my discourse, my note isn’t really to condemn or praise this wine - more to reflect on why it has such great appeal.
I had a bottle of this earlier this year that was gifted to me. It was the most memorably bad bottle of wine I have had in quite a long time. Tasted like something that might have been released by Welch’s.
Seriously, this wine was never designed for people who inhabit this board. It is incredibly successful and made for people who like slightly sweet wine, but talk about how much they enjoy dry ones. The marketing is brilliant, as it uses a high-end name that enables them to charge such high prices.
The grapes though are from all over Napa, but I gather ost are purchased from growers.
I am sure there are some lurkers that don’t revile it! For me, it was very drinkable but I have no delusions about it either - reminds me of a ‘22 Bedrock Zinfandel I had last weekend - a decent fruit forward wine that drank easily. The difference is the Bedrock is 22 bucks!
I know it’s blasphemy but I kind of feel the same way about the entry Bedrock. I guess it’s ok for a backyard cocktail wine but it tastes heavy and slightly sweet to me. If Caymus is 10g id guess the Bedrock is 5?
Good question - my thought is wine made from ripe grapes can still have a sweetness to them even if they have low RS. Need someone who makes wine to confirm that!
If we can agree that those on CellarTracker tend to be relatively serious collectors of wine - maybe not the refined palates of WBs but not total neophytes we can see that Veuve NV leads the pack (kind of like the Caymus of Champagne for me - I will drink it but unless it is La Grand Dame not so interested). 08 Dom - Yes. '09/'10 PC - yes for me but probably no for Mark Golodetz. '00 Lynch - maybe John Gilman would approve but I know JG would love number 7 - the '08 Cris. But number 6 on the list - must be a mistake - no serious CT user would shamefully put that bottle in their cellar…
Thanks for looking at the numbers. Incredible really. So the wine has residual sugar, how did that many ‘collectors’ decide to buy this wine? Did they think that this is what Napa Valley is all about? Maybe they all rushed into buying what was hot at the time and are now regretting it… One note reads as follows:
I opened the wine 2.5 hours before drinking. It was in good condition, tasted of cherries and fruits, too sweet for my taste, a bit alcoholic, and not very subtle or complex. I drink very few American wines, and this re-inforced that bias.
Maybe not just sweetness but also a lack of grip, and very round mouth feel. In a word, Easy. I should add I’ve tasted very few but was gifted a bottle a little while ago.
Of the 14 wines on the top cellartracker list, 12 of them I’d think are wines a typical Berserker would “respect” if brought to dinner.
The Veuve and Caymus are #1 and #6. So either WB’ers aren’t telling us how much Caymus they are actually cellaring or CT is way more leaning towards a different segment of the wine world than I had considered.
or CT is way more leaning towards a different segment of the wine world than I had considered.