Vertical Tasting of Hundred Acre Kayli Morgan Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon

Canadian ex-investment banker Jayson Woodbridge’s excellent California wine adventure began in 2000 with his purchase of a ten-acre clay dome along the Silverado Trail between St. Helena and Calistoga. From its first vintage that year, the Hundred Acre Kayli Morgan Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon has proved to be a remarkably plush, velvety elixir. I can’t think of many other Napa Valley red wines that have exceeded it in consistency since then. 

Woodbridge had been seeking a prime site in Napa Valley for several years when vineyard manager Jim Barbour recommended a parcel of land he thought was ideal for Cabernet Sauvignon. It had previously been planted to Sauvignon Blanc but Barbour had ripped out the vines, installed a new irrigation system and planted Cabernet at a dense meter by meter-and-a-half spacing in 1996 for the then-owner. Woodbridge brought in consulting winemaker Philippe Melka, who told him that the soil resembled that of Château Pétrus on the Pomerol plateau. The essentially flat site, which actually slopes down very gently from its center, is sheltered from the northwest to east by hills and thus spared the hot late-afternoon sun. Its ancient fractured clay soil is studded with volcanic glass and pebbles, so it absorbs water slowly and is able to keep the vines cool and resistant to heat spikes—“like natural A.C. for the vines,” says Woodbridge.

Kayli Morgan Vineyard

Woodbridge Is a Dynamo

By any standards of productivity, Woodbridge is a whirlwind. He also makes wines under other labels such as Cherry Pie (Pinot Noir from Napa and Sonoma) and Layer Cake (a series of consistently excellent everyday drinking wines from California, Spain, Italy, Australia and Argentina); and he now owns three prime Cabernet vineyards between St. Helena and Calistoga. He bought and planted the amphitheater Ark Vineyard, located about 500 feet off the valley floor on Glass Mountain above St. Helena on highly complex volcanic soils, producing his first vintage from this site in 2005. And his Few and Far Between vineyard, the first release from which was the 2008, is essentially the upslope of the Eisele vineyard, which now belongs to the owner of Château Latour. Just for good measure, he also makes a stunning (and extremely expensive) California port from Cabernet Sauvignon, and from time to time offers a Cabernet called Deep Time, from raw material allowed to spend three to five years in barrel.