2008 Cabernet Sauvignon Vintner Select

As the challenges of difficult growing seasons fade with time, two things happen. First, in the memory of winemakers, rain events magically become less extreme: the actual torrential rainfall that plagued a harvest shrinks to moderate precipitation and eventually to a vague recollection of moisture. Freakishly cool or brutally hot harvest weather or damaging hail storms are virtually forgotten, as the body has a short memory for pain. At the same time, as the wines themselves mature and are transformed, they reveal themselves to be less extreme after all, until at some point it can be next to impossible to find the insanity of the vintage in the bottle. I’ve seen these patterns play out again and again in temperate wine-growing areas like Bordeaux, Burgundy and northern Italy—and even in normally hot, bone-dry growing regions. Two thousand eight was such a year for California’s North Coast.

It's another world on top of Spring Mountain, and I'm always surprised by how late the harvest can take place here. According to winemaker Sally Johnson, "2009 was a great growing season, but then it rained. Our whites were in but not the reds. We picked our sangiovese quickly, but except for some of these grapes we didn't have rot. Some of the merlot was diluted by the rain, but the cabernet was picked a good month later." My visit focused on the showy, aromatically perfumed 2008s, which have turned out well. According to Johnson, these wines have "an easy softness. They're a bit less grippy than the 2007s and 2006s but will give early pleasure."