Horizontal Tasting of Napa Valley’s 1994 Cabernets

This past March I conducted a fascinating 20-years-after tasting of Napa Valley’s 1994 Cabernet Sauvignons and Bordeaux blends alongside my 10-years-after look at the 2004s. In many ways the experience was like tasting wines from two different generations. For starters, many of the wineries that submitted samples of their 2004s didn’t exist in ’94. Then too, 1994 was essentially a time when alcohol levels had just begun their inexorable climb to today’s high-octane levels. As a general rule, the 1994s were about a full degree lower in alcohol than the 2004s I reported on last week. And they appear to be developing even more slowly than the 2004s are.

Cathy Corison’s winery in St. Helena, home to Kronos Vineyard, which is planted with diseased, head-trained Cabernet Sauvignon