Bryant’s Cabernet Sauvignon: 1994-2014

BY STEPHEN TANZER | MAY 9, 2017

St. Louis businessman Donald L. Bryant, Jr. acquired his 13-acre
vineyard overlooking Lake Hennessey in the late 1980s, then called on top viticulturist
David Abreu to replant it with 100% Cabernet Sauvignon (there had originally
been vines on the property dating back to the 1950s). Bryant hired winemaker
Helen Turley at the outset and the first vintage to be released was the 1992.
Thanks to Turley’s talents and the quality and concentration of the fruit, the
Bryant Family Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon quickly became one of Napa Valley’s most
fashionable and expensive cult wines. 

<img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1494339472281-PH+Bryant+Map+1.jpg"> 

Bryant Family Vineyard, as
seen in the Vinous Map: The Vineyards of Pritchard Hill

A Warm, High-Altitude Site

Bryant’s Pritchard Hill vineyard is located between 750 and 1,000 feet
above sea level. It’s rocky and exposed, with a tilt toward the afternoon sun
that makes it a very warm site (Colgin’s IX Estate, by comparison, is mostly
east-facing and at slightly higher altitude.) In fact, shade cloth is used
across the entire property to give the wines some relief from the hottest afternoon
sunshine in mid- to late summer. According to winemaker Marc Gagnon, because
many key phenolic compounds require early-season sunlight, the estate normally
waits until late July (i.e., after the veraison and green-thinning) to mount
the shade cloth.

A road separates the bottom two-thirds of the vineyard from the top
third, which was covered with oak trees at the time of the purchase but was
planted to Cabernet Sauvignon in 1998 (the estate is now in the process of
replanting one of those upper blocks to Cabernet Franc). The lower sections were
replanted by Abreu in 1996, 2001 and 2006. The constantly decomposing volcanic
soil is predominantly a reddish-brown Sobrante loam spread along a patchwork of
varying depths before reaching solid andesite. Sections of the property are
dry-farmed, as some of the top blocks along the tree line have deeper soil.
Yields for the estate’s flagship wine are routinely very low, ranging from 1.1
to 2.8 tons per acre, although the estate has reached 3+ tons per acre three
times since 2009, with that vintage having produced an all-time record of 3.8
tons per acre. Annual production of the flagship estate wine has ranged between
300 and 1,000 cases. (The estate also produces two other bottlings: Bettina is
a proprietary red blend made from three vineyards owned by David Abreu – Thorevilos,
Madrona Ranch and Las Posadas. Bryant also offers an earlier-maturing wine
called DB4 made from the home site on Pritchard Hill plus the Abreu vineyards.)

The Pritchard Hill property began with 100% Cabernet Sauvignon and the
flagship estate Cabernet is still varietally pure. But today the property
includes 5% Petit Verdot and 5% Cabernet Franc. Some of the Cabernet Franc goes
into the DB4 bottling and the best of this fruit may eventually find its way into
the flagship Cabernet.<img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1494341776898-2010+Napa+article+cover+photo.jpg">Bryant Family Vineyards, Pritchard Hill A Long Roster of Talented
Winemakers

Bryant has employed a number of talented winemakers through the years,
with famed enologist Michel Rolland providing advice and helping with the final
blending since 2003. Helen Turley vinified from 1992 through 2002.
Enologist/consulting winemaker Philippe Melka finished the 2001 and vinified
the 2003 through 2006 vintages. Marc Aubert took over winemaking
responsibilities in time for the 2007 harvest and did the final blend of the
2006 with Rolland. Aubert then vinified at Bryant Family Vineyard through 2009.
There were then a succession of part-time winemakers within just a few years:
Ross Wallace made the 2010, Helen Keplinger made the 2011, and Todd Alexander
vinified in 2012 and 2013 (and finished the 2011). Current winemaker Marc
Gagnon, who had previously been assistant winemaker at Screaming Eagle, took
over in June of 2014 as Bryant’s full-time winemaker.

Vinification and Élevage

Helen Turley carried out shorter macerations, as the early vintages
were made at the Napa Wine Company custom-crush facility in Oakville. Her last
vinification, in 2002, was Bryant’s first in their new winery on Pritchard
Hill. But winemaker Gagnon, who vinifies the estate Cabernet in a mix of
concrete vats, stainless steel tanks and oak barrels, extols the benefits of
extended maceration, beginning with the fact that it gives him more tools when
working with younger blocks (fruit from some young vines spends as long as 50
days on its skins). He also favors longer total time on the skins for valley-floor
fruit as it’s difficult to overextract from these grapes. The older vines also
get a slower extraction, lasting as long as 35 days. But the steepest hillside
blocks, owing to their considerable tannic clout, can spend as little as 15
days on their skins, with little or no post-fermentation maceration. Gagnon’s
goal for the temperature of the fermentation is a steady 80 degrees F. and he
does not like to exceed 83.

Don Bryant’s wife Bettina Bryant, who became president of the estate in
2014, told me that in the early vintages the estate aged its free-run juice in
100% new oak (Turley used virtually all Taransaud barrels) but that the final
blend also usually included a bit of press wine that had been aged in a used
barrel. Nowadays, Gagnon uses about 90% new oak, and after a period of years in
which a blend of coopers was used, Gagnon is back to virtually 100% Taransaud
barrels. “I find that they just work
for the estate wine,” he told me, explaining that “our Cabernet Sauvignon here
has always had a true varietal olive character and the Taransaud barrels elevate
and harmonize that component.” He does a “base blend” after 12 months, still
with the involvement of Michel Rolland, then typically bottles without fining
or filtration during the second June or July.

This very warm site makes a deep wine with intense, glossy mountain dark-fruit
character and a firm yet filigreed structure. The pHs of the finished wines
typically range between 3.7 and 3.9, with total acidity levels between 5.6 and
6.3 grams per liter. Alcohol levels in recent years have been consistently
around 15%, although vintages like 2004, 2007 and 2008 climbed higher. (At 13%
potential alcohol, the seeds would still be green, noted Gagnon.) As a general
rule, the harvest here has taken between three and four weeks. Although recent
vintages like 2011 and 2010 were very late (beginning on October 17 and 14,
respectively), mid- to late September has been a more typical starting time.
Incidentally, Gagnon told me that he is now picking a little earlier than
previously. In 2014, for example, he carried out 49 “micro-picks” of the estate
vineyards stretching from the end of August to early October! According to the
estate’s records, the only previous year when any Cabernet was picked at the
end of August was 2001.<img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1494339269401-Vertical+tasting+of+the+Bryant+Family+Vineyard+Cabernet+Sauvignon+%283%29.jpg"> 

The Style of the Wines

I had expected to taste a good representation of vintages, but the
estate presented every vintage back to 1994, with the exception of the 1999 to
2001 trio, for which stocks are extremely short. (According to my memory,
Bryant outperformed in 1999 and 2000, but its 2001, the last vintage made at
Napa Wine Company, was compromised by a brett problem and was diminished by the
sterile filtration that was required.) Even the oldest vintages I tasted were
full of life; the intense black fruit flavors provided by the vineyard are virtually
bulletproof, although what’s even more impressive about this wine is the
varietal purity and complexity of the Cabernet Sauvignon, which makes a
complete wine here without the addition of other varieties. Of the many
extensive vertical tastings I’ve conducted in California and elsewhere in
recent years, the Bryant flagship wine stands out for the consistency of its
high quality—clear proof of the supremacy of the site.

Gagnon describes the style of the Bryant Cabernet this way: “Black
fruits, olive tapenade—the structure of mountain fruit but always with
fine-grained, high-volume tannins.” He added: “We’re on a mountainside at high
elevation but not all of our parcels are steep, so that can make for more
refined tannins.” For her part, Bettina Bryant characterized “classic” Bryant Cabernet
as possessing “hauntingly ethereal aromatics and very pure minerality that
gives focus and energy,” adding that the complexity of the site yields
unusually dynamic wines from a single variety. She also mentioned the estate’s
“slightly more restrained approach” in recent vintages, which she said is aimed
at crafting wines “that demonstrate structural elegance, balance with good
acidity, and plush tannins—all elements that make them very ageworthy.”

I tasted the Bryant Cabernets with Bettina Bryant and Mark Gagnon at
Bryant Family Vineyard in March.

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