two '97 CA Cabs

Dinner at the Skillins

1997 Corison Cabernet, Napa Valley Kronos Vineyard - My last bottle from half a case. Medium garnet color. Lovely aromas with red currant and something leafy; not eucalyptus. Light to medium bodied on the palate with nicely tender fruit, tannins fully resolved. It’s a little hollow in the middle but has a long, subtle finish. Rated about 89 last night, this was better a few years ago.

1997 River Run Cabernet, Santa Cruz Mountains, Harvest Moon Vineyard - Darker color, cleaner, finer, more piquant aromas with black currants, a touch of black raspberry and something coniferous. Medium bodied on the palate, seamless, tannins resolved. A broad mid-palate segues into a long finish with the black raspberry touch more pronounced. Rated about 91 - 92.
This wine is a puzzle to me. On release, it was massive and I thought it would take forever to come around. I’ve watched it develop over the years, shedding bulk and tannins more quickly than I could have imagined and now is fully mature at half the age I expected.

Anybody else have experience with big big tannic cabs that develop more quickly than expected? I am not complaining about this wine, well maybe a little. I expected it to develop more slowly into something more sizeable and maybe a little better.

Dan Kravitz

I was shocked at how quickly the 1998 Pavie disintegrated into mush [circa 2006/2007, it was just awful].

Back in the day, it seems that maybe there were a lot of influential critics who pushed a lot of gullible winemakers in the completely wrong direction as regards ageability [or cellarworthiness or whatever you wanna call it].

E.g. I still wonder about the extent to which the critics might have been responsible for the white burgundy premox catastrophe [given that they were pushing practices like low-sulphur dosing (or even no sulphur), stirring of the lees, low pH, etc etc etc].

I have a theory on this subject, which can probably be neither proved or disproved, just my opinion. Winemakers, in the 90s, started blending more and more merlot into CA cabs, than earlier. They did this to appease critics, and many wine drinkers, to soften the wines, upon release, and make them more immediately accessible. The vast majority(almost all) of the CA merlot clones do not age like their French cousins, this is a known fact. I believe that the merlot portion of the cabs (approaching 25% in some) is a ticking time bomb for the wine. What I have noticed in some of my CA cabs is the greater the percent of merlot in the wine, the faster the aging curve.

All of this went before and in addition to the push to extended hang times, riper fruit, and decreased acid in CA cabs.

When you say big big tannic, do you mean big big, with some tannins, or do you mean enormously tannic? Big big fruit, with some tannins, seem to resolve fairly frequently, and the 1997 vintage is exceptionally well known, to a detriment, for exactly that.

I know King Cab Mike Pobega agrees with me, but I have been disappointed in '97 cabs, for this very reason. They peaked WAY too early, and I drank mine up long ago as a result.

Bingo…for all but the very top of the quality pyramid, I’d say this is accurate. I think that many 1994, 95, 96, and 99s are hanging on much, much better across the board, although there is significant variability with 96, although YMMV.

Agree absolutely

Replay with 2007s…
Always liked 1999s better anyway, and to a large part, most 1996s too. [cheers.gif]

Although the Pride Reserve Cab I had last month was pretty good.

The 94s have always been my favorite of that decade. Still have a very going very strong! flirtysmile

Although I don’t have any personal experience with aging them , I’ve read several people say that the Cinq Cepageses from that era, which Laube was so enamored of, died a very premature death.

Nathan;

You are correct on the Cinqs. They did die young.

Laube writes on a continual basis that he likes his wines young, and to chew on tannins. The type wines that he prefers, huge upfront fruit and higher alcohol, are probably just the type of wines that will not age well. I think it was the 97 Harlan that he gave 100 points to, and at the 10 year retrospective tasting it had mostly died, and he gave it a 87-88. He asked the winemaker from Harlan about it who replied " I don’t make my wines to age, I make the for immediate gratification and drinking". Never confuse what JL likes and what will age well. WS writers get defensive on the subject of ability of a wine to age, and how, if at all, that plays into the rankings.