2016 Snowden Cabernet Sauvignon “The Ranch”
My first wine is 2016 Snowden Cabernet Sauvignon “The Ranch” ($65) from a vineyard that has been around a long time, although only started making their own wine a little more than a decade ago. Their story begins when Wayne and Virginia Snowden, along with their two young boys, Scott and Randy, began visiting the Napa Valley in 1952 for their summer vacation. What started as a break from the hustle and bustle of city life took on new meaning when they discovered a couple of the early Napa wineries, Domingo (now Ehlers Lane) and Charles Krug. When they returned for the summer of 1953 they also discovered Souverain, which today is the home to former club selection Burgess Cellars. The prospect of growing grapes intrigued them so when they returned for the summer of 1954 they began looking for property.
After an exhaustive search they settled on a 160 acre parcel located east of Silverado Trail that they purchased from the Eisan family, who had owned it since 1895. In the early 1960s, Wayne planted six acres of Cabernet Sauvignon on the site of a long-abandoned orchard at the “top of the property.” This is the relatively flat area at the top of the mountain ridge between the Napa Valley proper and Conn Valley. He obtained grafting wood from Nathan Fay, who had recently developed his own vineyard in the Stag’s Leap area. He overcame a number of obstacles, including a lack of water and wild life which found the young vines delicious.
Following Wayne Snowden’s death in 1977, Virginia gave sons Scott and Randy Snowden responsibility for the property. In 1981, they removed all of the then-producing vineyards and orchards and replanted them to Cabernet Sauvignon, utilizing budwood from Jordan Vineyards near Healdsburg. Through the 1980s, they sold grapes from the resulting 11 acre vineyard, today called “The Brothers Vineyard,” to Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars. During that time, the family worked closely with Warren Winiarski, owner of Stag’s Leap, and his acclaimed viticultural consultant, Danny Schuester, to improve the overall quality of their fruit. They also developed several other blocks on the property, growing primarily Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot and a tiny parcel of Sauvignon Blanc. By the 1990’s they were selling grapes to many of the superstars of the time, Dave Ramey, Silver Oak, Viader and Caymus. Then starting in 2003 they began holding back a small percentage of their crop to produce their own wine.
It is no coincidence that they started to produce their own wine as their daughter, Diane Snowden Seysses was ready to take the reins. Diane was born and raised in Napa Valley, and earned her Viticulture and Enology degree from the University of California at Davis. During and after her studies, she worked at wineries in California and France, including Robert Mondavi Winery, Mumm Napa Valley, the Araujo Estate, Ramey Wine Cellars, Fleur de Boüard, and Domaine Leflaive. During her time in Burgundy she met, and married, Jeremy Seysses of the famous Domaine Dujac. Today she and Jeremy divide their time between the two areas as she is head winemaker for both properties. As Dujac produces almost exclusively Pinot Noir, you see her deft hand and understanding how to coax tremendous complexity from her wines, even Cabernet Sauvignon, without relying on overripeness, excessive oak or additives such as acidity, high color concentrates or residual sugar.
To produce the Snowden Cabernet Sauvignon, the family uses grapes from several blocks on the estate. The majority of the wine, 85%, is Cabernet Sauvignon, with the remainder being Merlot. After hand harvesting and sorting the grapes, fermentation in stainless steel tanks using native yeasts takes place. Once dry the wine is moved to French oak barrels for malolactic conversion and aging. The wine is aged for 17 months in a combination of half new, half one-year old barrels and bottled without filtration or fining. 2900 cases of this wine were produced.
Decant this wine for an hour before serving and you will be rewarded with a nose dark chocolate, dried cherry, dried red plums and my marker for high quality Napa Cab, wet concrete. On the palate this wine is quite dry and firm, with a savory, rich quality and tremendous length. Drink 2022-2030.
2018 Kathryn Kennedy Cabernet Sauvignon “Small Lot”
For my second selection we will move south of San Francisco to the Santa Cruz Mountains for the 2018 Kathryn Kennedy Cabernet Sauvignon “Small Lot” ($54). Although not as well known as Napa Valley, from the late 1800’s to the middle of the 20th century it was wineries in this region that provided much of the foundation for the California wine industry. It was the wines of Congress Springs, Mount Eden, Ridge and Martin Ray that inspired many winemakers to look to the hills, instead of the flat valley floor, to produce truly inspired wines. It was one of those 1950’s Cabernets from Martin Ray that inspired a young, single mom, Kathryn Kennedy, to see wine as a way to feed her family and become financially independent.
Like most Californians born in the 1920’s, Kathryn Kennedy did not dream of making wine. Her family moved to Santa Clara when she was fifteen, and by nineteen she had graduated from Stanford. In 1949 she moved with the first of four children, to their property in Saratoga, what is now one of the toniest addresses in Silicon Valley. In order to preserve the property from development she considered raising Christmas trees, but realized her busiest time of year would keep her from enjoying the holidays with her children. She noticed that workers were tending an old Cabernet vineyard across the street from her property and started thinking about wine. Remembering the bottle of Martin Ray, she enrolled at UC Davis in the early 1970’s to study viticulture. After two semesters at UC Davis the challenge of driving two-and-a-half hours, the gas crisis and raising four kids alone finally compelled her to quit school, but not before taking the advice of one of her professors to plant Cabernet Sauvignon. In 1972 she purchased 3300 cuttings from David Bruce and began to nurtured them for a year before planting them on her estate with the help of family and friends. In 1977 and 1978 she sold the grapes to Mount Eden, then in 1979 launched Kathryn Kennedy wines, one of the first female owned in California.
For forty years Kennedy produced powerful, age worthy wines, and is considered one of the top wineries in the Santa Cruz Mountains region. Throughout her career she resisted the pressure to sell her property for development, even as prices escalated to two million dollars an acre. She passed away in 2009 after a long battle with cancer and shortly after the family was forced to sell off parcels to developers. Today her son Marty Mathis still produces about a thousand cases of Estate Cabernet Sauvignon from the remaining seven acre estate vineyard, as well this Small Lot Cabernet Sauvignon. Marty also produces wine under his own label, as well as Lateral, his Cheval Blanc inspired blend from Napa Valley, that was a Reserve Club feature in January, 2019.
When you open this wine you will want to decant it for up to a half-hour before serving. Like most Santa Cruz Cabs this one displays a unique minerality that is pervasive through the ripe fruit. Notes of blackberry preserves, dried black plums and fresh crushed black currants mingle with subtle shades of graphite and iron water. On the palate this wine is firm and the tannins are quite muscular. Drink 2022-2032.
2016 Andrew Rich Glacial
Unlike the first two selections where their founders fell in love with wine country and desired to be a part of it, my final selection began as a business decision. The 2016 Andrew Rich Glacial ($39) is produced primarily from the Red Willow Vineyard in the Yakima Valley, one of the most important and historic in Washington State. Since I featured Andrew last year with one of his Pinot Noir selections, this year we will focus on Red Willow and the Sauer family who farm it.
Like many Washington State vineyards, Red Willow only became a source for grapes in the early 1970’s. Prior to that the Sauer family had farmed their large property for three generations growing potatoes, alfalfa and raising cattle. Then in the early 1970’s Mike Sauer became friends with Dr. Walter Clore, a viticultural scientist from Washington State University, and the man most responsible for the establishment of the wine industry in the state. Clore convinced Mike to plant a small experimental vineyard, thirty acres of Concord grapes and a small amount of Semillon and Chenin Blanc. He recognized the sites unique attributes and was convinced great wines could be made from their land.
Unlike much of the vineyards in Washington State, where the geology was impacted greatly by the Missoula floods, the vineyard that is now known as Red Willow was not. Sitting 1200-1300 feet above sea level, this parcel was not effected by the movement of water and soil deposits of vineyards in the valley below. As a result the ancient volcanic soils of the area have weathered to create a deep layer of sand, very poor in organic material. The remote location of this vineyard also means that irrigation is limited creating even more stress on the vines. The old adage that grapes do best in poor soils plays out well here, which also caught the attention of David Lake, Master of Wine in the late 1970’s.
Perhaps the second most important person in the early genesis of the Washington wine industry, behind Clore, was a young Master of Wine named David Lake, who became the first winemaker of Columbia Winery. Due to Lake’s MW studies he had traveled the great vineyards of Europe and recognized like few others at the time the potential for the steep slopes of eastern Washington to produce great wine. In 1978 Lake bottled one of the first vineyard designated wines in Washington State, the Red Willow Cabernet Sauvignon, which brought new credibility to the state and the Sauer vineyards. In addition, Lake convinced the Sauers to plant Syrah on the site, as well as many other unknown varieties at the time such as Tempranillo, Malbec, Mataro/Mourvedre and Viognier. I remember meeting Lake in the late 1980’s and he told me about the Syrah in Red Willow and how the vineyard reminded him of the hill of Hermitage. This blew my mind because at the time the only Syrah available from anywhere was from the northern Rhone. My how times have changed!
After his stint in California, working for the inquisitive Randall Grahm at Bonny Doon, Andrew Rich moved to the Pacific Northwest intent on making Rhone inspired wines. It is hard to believe now, but in the early 1990’s he had to wait for plantings of Syrah, Grenache and Mourvedre to mature, so he bided his time making Pinot Noir. Luckily his enthusiasm for these grapes has given him access to some of the best vineyards in the Columbia Valley, including the oldest blocks of Syrah from the Red Willow Vineyard. The 2016 iteration of this wine is 60% Syrah, 20% Grenache and 20% Mourvedre, with the bulk of the grapes coming from the 1980’s plantings from Red Willow. The rest of the pieces are from the early 1990’s plantings in Ciel du Cheval on Red Mountain, so not too shabby either.
When you open this wine it is so effusive that you will want to dive right in, but resist! A half hour in the decanter will reveal so much more in the bouquet. If you can wait you will be rewarded with a deep nose of blackberry and black cherry, jams, dried black fig, Full City roast coffee beans, black olives, rosemary and sage. On the palate it is deeply concentrated, with firm tannins and moderate acidity, so pair this with a fattier cut of meat such as a ribeye or rack of lamb. Drink 2021-2026.