Tasted blind with the Far Niente. Clearly a US style wine but this is a great year and this is a very good wine. All coffee-choc, blackcurrant and warm vanillan oak, and a touch of sherry character which I can’t really explain (not oxidative, perhaps an oak-derived aroma). Silky rounded flavours covering the spectrum from black to red-berried; meaty, balanced, nice.
Vibe
Stylish and generous. I enjoyed it a lot and rated it in the top 5 for the tasting of 20 shit-hot Cabernet wines. This is a seriously good wine with a Cali price-tag to go with it, although I can’t tell you what it is because their website won’t list prices.
Value: As part of a wider tasting so I don’t know what this retails for, but it’s not cheap. Not available in Australia anyway.
Tasted: November 2010
Closure: Cork
Tech-head
Producer: Araujo Estate Wines – www.araujoestate.com – claiming organic and biodynamic status.
Region: Napa Valley, California – from the ‘historic’ Eisele Vineyard on an alluvial fan at the north end of the Valley, just east of Calistoga. Cobbly soils.
Vintage: The winter leading into the 2007 vintage was a dry one. A mild spring followed providing ideal growing conditions. Summer was also mild, no heat spikes. A great Napa vintage.
Tasted this blind at a recent Cabernet tasting, along with the Araujo. This looked almost Euro. There was a certain sexiness to it that you don’t usually see in Californian wines. It opened a little weedy but shook this off pretty quickly in the glass. Evolved nicely. Blackcurrant dominating the nose. Palate had a bit of tannin action, although it had lovely texture and came alive with each sip. Plummy and raspberry, midweight and a little restrained – again, something not normally associated with this region.
Vibe
I liked this more and more in the glass. Nice evolution over a few hours, but I don’t usually want to sit on a glass for that long to find out. A very good wine from a very good vintage.
Tasted: November 2010
Value: US$115 – ridiculous really, but if you want it, you’ll pay for it.
Closure: Cork
Tech-head
Producer: Far Niente - www.farniente.com – founded in 1885
Region: Oakville, Napa Valley, California. The base for this wine is sourced from the winery’s Oakville Estate – a 100 acre planting known as the Martin Stelling Vineyard. Soils are gravelly loam.
Vintage: The winter leading into the 2007 vintage was a dry one. A mild spring followed providing ideal growing conditions. Summer was also mild, no heat spikes. A great Napa vintage.
