David Abreu – Revisiting the 2008s
BY ANTONIO GALLONI |
Readers will find much to admire in David Abreu’s 2008s. In most vintages, the Abreu wines are very slow to develop, but the 2008s have largely entered an early plateau of maturity where they are quite expressive. Stylistically, I find the 2008s a bit more marked by oak and torrefaction notes than is the norm these days, which may be a reflection of a different mix of coopers during this era. In recent years winemaker Brad Grimes has shifted towards Taransaud barrels, which he feels are especially well suited to the wines. As always, the Abreu reds are mostly co-fermented blends in which grapes are picked and fermented according to ripeness as opposed to strictly by single grape variety. That, along with Brad Grimes’s no nonsense, highly intuitive approach to farming and winemaking, are a few of the many attributes that make these some of the most distinctive wines being made anywhere in the world.
David Abreu’s Cappella vineyard, St. Helena, as shown in the Vinous Map: The Vineyards of St. Helena & Conn Valley, by Antonio Galloni and Alessandro Masnaghetti, 2017.
