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I was happy to have the chance to catch up on these wines, as the multi-talented Paul Hobbs has served as winemaking consultant here in recent years. (His first full vintage was 2009, but he blended the '07s and worked on the '08s.) Under his direction, the team at this spectacular estate at the top of Diamond Mountain has done much more diligent vineyard work and better canopy management to reduce the tannic load in these wines ("tannin levels are down 40% since the earlier days here," he told me), and he has similarly moved toward gentler extraction with the same objective. He begins with a cold soak lasting five to eight days, then does a hot open-air fermentation with three aerated pumpovers daily, but no punchdowns as the skins are so thick. He then cools the tanks to draw out the final stage of fermentation, with the wines typically spending about 30 days on their skins. Hobbs told me that the tannins in 2011 were not as sweet as those in 2010, and that with a lower quantity of tannins the wines are less structured. But if the wines are less opulent than the '10s, he also believes they will age well. Like many winemakers I met with in March, Hobbs was considering adding back some 2012 juice to the 2011 reds.

From Annual Coverage of California's North Coast (May 2013) by Stephen Tanzer

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2010 Cabernet Sauvignon Estate Diamond Mountain Vineyard Diamond Mountain District

Color: Red

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