The 2001 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon: Stepping Back in Time
BY ANTONIO GALLONI |
Two thousand-one is one of the most important vintages in Napa Valley of the last 25 years or so. Highly regarded at the time, 2001 continues to impress with dark, potent wines, many of which are in the sweet spot for current drinking.
A Retrospective of Wines and Memories…
Two thousand-one is a vintage that holds some pretty special memories, as it is the first vintage in Napa Valley I tasted comprehensively with Robert Parker. Sometime in late 2010, Bob asked me to take over coverage of California wines for The Wine Advocate. I was, quite frankly, overwhelmed. I knew a little bit about California wines, but to say I was far from an expert would be an understatement. I had no idea how to tackle such an immense assignment. It seemed to me that tasting with Bob was an obvious start. But Bob was very much a lone wolf. I asked multiple times to taste together. Bob never said no; he just never replied. Then, one day, out of the blue in the winter of 2011, the phone rang. It was Bob. “I am going to Napa in May to taste the 2001s…want to come?” I almost dropped the phone. A few months later, there we were, in St. Helena, to taste hundreds of 2001s over three intense days.
We worked through the wines in small flights, alphabetically. Bob clearly had a routine. I just followed and tried to keep up. I remember that on the first day the Abreu and Araujo Estate wines arrived late, so we tasted them at the end of the afternoon. Initially, Bob didn’t say much, but he gradually opened up. It was one of those rare moments in life when I knew something really important was happening. I wanted to freeze time. I had only tasted with Bob once before, outside of dinners and other Wine Advocate gatherings, at a comprehensive tasting of the 2000 Bordeaux sometime around 2006/2007. I was terrified and excited at the same time. At the end of each morning and afternoon, we picked our favorites and talked about them in depth. This was the beginning of my understanding that quality in wine sits above style. The cream always rises to the top. Even though Bob and I came at these wines with totally different backgrounds, there was not much disagreement on the standouts.
At the time, the major takeaway was that the wines were very, very young and still in need of considerable cellaring. Most of the better wines tasted like they were two to three years old, not ten! Needless to say, it was great fun to revisit these wines a decade later.
The 2001 Growing Season
