The 2009 Napa Valley Cabernets at Age 10

BY STEPHEN TANZER&nbsp;| JULY 25, 2019My extensive tastings of 2009 Cabernets this spring made clear,
once again, that virtually any well-made Cabernet from a decent vintage should
gain in drinkability and complexity with bottle aging. In fact, for the better
examples it’s really a shame if they’re consumed during their first ten years,
when they can be a bit overassertive. And 2009 was a much better than “decent”
vintage, with a temperate growing season that featured slow ripening and a
larger-than-average harvest. Most growers were able to nurse their red Bordeaux
grapes to full phenolic ripeness without raisining of their fruit or
skyrocketing sugar levels, all the while retaining healthy levels of natural
acidity. This is a formula for making elegant, ageworthy wines.<img alt="" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.vinous.com/uploads%2F1563997422770-2009napa_cover.jpg"> 

Rolling hillside vineyards at Blankiet Estate, Yountville

A Brief Recap of the
2009 Growing Season

The first quarter of the 2009 calendar year was chilly, and
April was as well, with the exception of a short heat spike to 90 degrees in the
middle of that month. Rainfall was generous in February but sparse in January
and March. In short, 2009 was the third consecutive year with below-average
precipitation, although October rainfall would eventually be a serious issue
for some growers.

Happily, during the late winter and early spring of 2009
there were only a handful of frosty nights, a relief to growers who had
experienced a virtually unbroken month-plus of very cold nighttime temperatures
between mid-March and late April of 2008. Warmer weather in much of May,
including a short heat spike in the middle of the month, triggered a mostly successful
Cabernet flowering during the second half of the month (some sites, however,
reported problems with shatter triggered by two very hot days on May 16 and 17),
while some rainfall that month (more than an inch during the first week of May)
helped to forestall the need for irrigation.

The weather then continued rather cool during the first half
of June and subsequently was variable until the last week of August, with no
heat spikes lasting longer than a couple of days and virtually no rain. There
were very few 100+ degree days, especially compared to the more extreme 2008
growing season, the so-called year of fire and ice (“ice and fire” would be
more appropriate). Some heat returned at the end of August and on and off
through September, and most growers credit these hot periods for ensuring good fruit
ripeness, but the first half of October brought two substantial rain storms.
The Cabernet harvest had begun at the end of September but those who had not
yet harvested when the rains arrived in most cases let their fruit hang until
the vines dried out, with some growers in the mountains ultimately picking into
early November. There was even some Merlot hanging at the time of the
early-October rainfall, as a few growers reported that their Merlot, unusually,
went through veraison even later than
their Cabernets.<img alt="" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.vinous.com/uploads%2F1563997440091-2019-04-17+17.40.31_copy.jpg"> 

The Wines Ten Years
Later

While 20 years of improvement in bottle might be over-optimistic
for some Napa Valley Cabernets and the wine drinkers who love them, ten years
is just a blip in time for the good ones. If it were my buck (or hundred, or
four hundred), I’d still hold the better 2009 Cabernets. Even the roughly half of
these wines that have embarked on their plateau of peak drinkability still
routinely have 8 to 12 years of life ahead of them, if not more—depending on
consistently cool storage, of course.

Wines made from fruit picked early in 2009 were typically
supple and generous, but medium- rather than full-bodied for the category,
while later-picked fruit could have more flavor development but also, in some
instances, a wider range of ripeness. Relatively few ‘09s displayed the
creaminess of the same wineries’ 2008s, which were made from a much more
extreme growing season and in most cases from a smaller crop of grapes. In
fact, more than one winemaker told me that the ‘09s took longer than usual to
emerge from their shells after bottling. On the other hand, I found fewer instances
of dehydrated fruit in the 2009s than I did in the ‘08s last year. Yes, a
number of the ‘09s that showed poorly in my tastings this spring were marred by
porty oxidative notes, but the majority of disappointments betrayed unpleasantly
dry tannins, either from an element of dilution in the grapes or from simple
underripeness.<img alt="" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.vinous.com/uploads%2F1563997468993-colgin_copy.jpg"> Colgin Cellars, Pritchard Hill 

And of course I tasted a number of wines with a bit more
pyrazine character than I normally prefer. In some cases, this was owing to grapes
that did not ripen fully, but in other instances these bottles are from
wineries that typically seek to make Cabernets in a more claret-like fashion (with
elements of fresh or dried herbs, tobacco leaf or mint), sometimes with a bit
of funkiness. Here there’s often a fine line between fresh wines that will
continue to mellow and gain in complexity with more bottle age and those that
will always be dominated by an herbal—or even vegetal—element.

The normally moderate tannic structure and sound acid levels
of the ‘09s suggested from the start that it would be a vintage for at least mid-term
aging, and this was largely borne out by my tastings this past March. But these
wines are barely a decade old: the better examples still retain much of their
primary fruit character, and their colors show little sign of development. Their
tannins may have partially resolved and they may be easier on the palate than
they were on release, but they’re still awfully young. Surely the best wines,
made from carefully controlled yields and consistently ripe grapes, will continue
to age gracefully on their balance for another decade or two.You Might Also Enjoy <a target="_blank" href="https://www.vinous.com/articles/paul-hobbs-cabernet-sauvignon-beckstoffer-to-kalon-1999-2016-jul-2019">Paul Hobbs’ Cabernet Sauvignon Beckstoffer To Kalon: 1999-2016</a>, Stephen Tanzer, July 2019 <a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/kapcsandy-merlot-roberta-s-reserve-and-cabernet-sauvignon-grand-vin-jun-2019">Kapcsándy Roberta’s Reserve and Grand Vin</a>, Stephen Tanzer, June 2019<a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/chateau-montelena-s-cabernet-estate-1977-2010-may-2019">Chateau Montelena Cabernet Estate: 1977-2010</a>, Stephen Tanzer, May 2019 <a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/vintage-retrospective-the-1999-napa-valley-cabernets-may-2019">Vintage Retrospective: The 1999 Napa Valley Cabernets</a>, Stephen Tanzer, May 2019<a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/vintage-retrospective-1991-napa-valley-cabernet-jul-2018">Vintage Retrospective: 1991 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon</a>, Stephen Tanzer, July 2018 <a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/vintage-retrospective-the-2008-napa-valley-cabernets-may-2018">Vintage Retrospective: The 2008 Napa Valley Cabernets</a>, Stephen Tanzer, May 2018

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