Tasting Report: 2007, 2006 California Cabernet Sauvignon

The Agony and the Ecstasy of Napa Cabs

You gotta love Napa Valley Cabs, especially from the 2007 vintage. The best wines show the opulence and richness you’d expect in a Cabernet Sauvignon from California, but they also exhibit a wonderful freshness and balance. It’s that clarity in fruit that makes these California Cabs so unique in the wine world.

I tasted close to 300 different Cabs from 2006 and 2007, mostly from Napa Valley, and I loved the very best. Such wines as 2007 Colgin Cariad (actually a Bordeaux blend) and the 2007 Scarecrow join some of the greatest red wines I have tasted in my career as a critic. I scored both a perfect 100 points. They are so wonderfully intense, yet they have an underlying freshness and balance. In fact, all the top reds I gave 95 to 100 points are like that. They are all wines that I would seriously consider the need to “refinance my house” to get my hands on.

I am so excited to be rating Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignons. It was a dream of mine for years to come back to my home state and taste its wines. I grew up drinking Napa Valley Cab with my father in Los Angeles. He was a long-time collector of them from the great vintages of Beaulieu Vineyard Private Reserve Georges De Latour to bottles of Mayacamas, Freemark Abbey and Robert Mondavi Reserve from the 1970s. I can’t wait to share a few of my highly-rated bottles with him now.

A word of warning, however, is also needed. My tasting experience was not a love-fest for Napa Cabs. I asked my tasting coordinator to find samples of some of the best wines rated by Robert Parker and The Wine Spectator,  and I have to say that about 100 of them were not outstanding quality, or buy calls. They were disappointing. I found too many of them had burning alcohol at the finish or some other imbalance. I just can’t take that in a red wine; Port, yes. Also, I found some of these wines had such flaws as noticeable residual sugar and brettanomyces, or barnyard character. That was surprising.

I just can’t help but remember what a Napa Valley winemaker told me during one of my two trips to the valley last fall. “The problem is that some people make wines from raisins instead of grapes,” she said.

I am not sure it is true, but my impression from a number of Napa winemakers is that many wineries are pulling the reins back a bit on the full-throttle in-your-face high-alcohol fruit-bomb wines for more balanced and refined ones. This, in my opinion, would be a great thing. I recently drank a bottle of 1968 Beaulieu Vineyard Private Reserve Georges De Latour in Hong Kong and the wine was gorgeous, with such complexity and finesse. It went wonderfully with our Italian meal at Otto e Mezzo restaurant. I miss those great Cabs from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. They were all about balance.

“Why doesn’t California make wines like this anymore?” asked my friend, who is an important wine merchant and collector in Hong Kong. “They go so well with food. So many California wines you taste now are overdone and you can’t drink them with food.”

May be he needs to try more California wine to understand that the finesse and balance is certainly there? But the perception of many in the global market is very much like his. California reds are too alcoholic and don’t go with food.

Another obvious problem with California -- particularly Napa Valley Cab -- is pricing. I was shocked to hear a number of wine producers say to me that they thought their wines were a “good value” because they were $125 a bottle. Maybe I have been gone from the States for too long, but $125 is not a good value. Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon on the whole is too expensive. Wine producers have to be more reasonable. It is certainly possible considering I found a 92-point Napa Valley Cabernet from Waterstone at $20 a bottle.

I did a wine tasting of California wine in Hong Kong for Watson’s Wine Cellars, and the overwhelming comment from the 50 or so wine lovers in attendance was that California wine was too expensive.

But enough. I tasted some great wines. Read below.

Wines also tasted but not rated:

2006 Arietta Napa Valley H Block Hudson Vineyards 2006 Arietta Napa Valley Quartet 2006 Arrowood Sonoma Valley Reserve Speciale 2006 Behrens & Hitchcock Napa Valley 14 2006 Beringer Napa Valley Steinhauer Ranch Vineyard 2006 Blackbird Vineyards Illustration 2006 Blackbird Vineyards Paramour 2006 Bond Pluribus 2006 Coho Napa Valley Headwaters 2006 Coho Napa Valley Summit Vine Ranch 2006 Crocker & Starr Stone Place Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 Diamond Creek Gravelly Meadow 2006 Diamond Creek Red Rock Terrace 2006 Drinkward Peschon Napa Valley Entre Deux Meres 2006 Freemark Abbey Cabernet Bosche 2006 Freemark Abbey Sycamore VIneyard 2006 Hidden Ridge Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 55% Slope 2006 Highland Estates Hawkeye Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 Highland Estates Napa Valley Napa Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 Highland Estates Napa Valley Napa Mountain Merlot 2006 Highland Estates Napa Valley Raptor Peak Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 Highland Estates Napa Valley Trace Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 Highland Estates Trace Ridge 2006 Jaffe Estate Metamorphosis 2006 Jaffe Estate Transformation 2006 Kelleher Napa Valley Oakville Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 Kelly Fleming Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 Lail Vineyards J. Daniel Cuvee 2006 Poem Cellars Marriage 2006 Signorello Vineyards Estate Grown and Bottled Cabernet Sauvignon  2006 Signorello Vineyards Napa Valley Padrone Proprietary Red Wine 2006 Silverado Vineyards SOLO Cabernet Sauvignon Stags Leap District 2006 Tor Napa Valley To Kalon Vineyard 2006 Veedercrest Estate St. Helena Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 Vine Cliff Napa Valley Oakville Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 Arietta Napa Valley H Block Hudson Vineyards 2007 Barnett Vineyards Napa Valley Cyrus Ryan Vineyard 2007 Behrens & Hitchcock Napa Valley The Heavyweight 2007 Beringer Napa Valley Rancho del Oso Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 Blackbird Vineyards Arise 2007 Coho Napa Valley Headwaters 2007 Coho Napa Valley Summitvine Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 Diamond Creek Gravelly Meadow 2007 Diamond Creek Red Rock Terrace 2007 Gallica Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 Gargiulo Napa Valley 575 OVX G Major Seven Study Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 Hourglass Napa Valley Blueline Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 Hourglass Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 Jacob Franklin Napa Valley Mon Chou #33 2007 Jacuzzi Family Vineyard Sonoma County Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 Jaffe Estate Metamorphosis 2007 Jaffe Estate Transformation 2007 Kelly Fleming Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 Kendall Jackson Napa Valley Grande Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 Kendall Jackson Napa Valley Jackson Hills Hess Jackson 2007 Lail Vineyards J. Daniels Cuvee 2007 Loam Sonoma County Cabernet Sauvignon  2007 Poem Cellars Elope 2007 Signorello Vineyards Estate Grown and Bottled Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 Stonestreet Sonoma County West Ledge 2007 Tor Napa Valley Cimarossa Vineyard 2007 Tor Napa Valley Mast Vineyard 2007 Tor Napa Valley To Kalon Vineyard 2007 Trefethen Family Vineyards Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 Veedercrest Estate Napa Valley Mt. Veeder Cabernet Sauvignon ** A special thank you to Paul Dray and the staff at C.I.A. Greystone in St. Helena for letting me use their facilities for the tasting. Visit their website here for more information on their world-class wine program.