1998 Cabernet Sauvignon Eisele Vineyard Napa Valley

Bart and Daphne Araujo, always looking to take their wines to a higher plane, recently brought in globetrotting enologist Michel Rolland as consultant. To date, says Araujo, changes have been minor tweaks rather than substantial tugs. "We're now pulling leaves where they block the fruit in most of our parcels," notes Araujo. There has also been a recent trend here toward less racking. "When you rack frequently, you always risk oxidizing the wine, and you often get oakier wines as a result," explains winemaker Francoise Peschon. "We're finding that we prefer the way the wood is integrated when we rack less often." My feeling is that the Araujo '97 cabernet, while outstanding by California standards, is not quite up to the potential of the vintage. But Araujo Estate has been a clear outperformer in '98 and '99, for both cabernet and syrah, and my early look at 2000 suggests that this will be another very strong year for this estate.

Winemaker Francoise Peschon describes the 1997 Araujo cabernet as a fruit-forward wine, with strong cherry and cassis flavors—in contrast to the blacker, earthier '96, a year in which the estate carefully removed burned berries to avoid getting pruney flavors in the wine. Nineteen ninety-eight, says Peschon, featured a low crop level and reasonable grape sugars due more to dehydration than to real ripening of skin components. The tannins seemed fuller during the wine's early months, she notes, but because they were not completely ripe, the coloring material has been less stable and some color has fallen out in barrel. (Other winemakers throughout the Napa Valley told similar tales of loss of color and density during their '98s' first summer in barrel.) Araujo Estate did not bottle a '97 syrah, as the very large crop lacked concentration.

The cabernet yield here was about two and a half tons per acre in '96 but a full four in '97. There will be no 1997 syrah, as the clusters were huge and the winemaking team felt the wine lacked concentration. I got an early look at the components that will constitute the '98 syrah: Araujo Block 11, which comes from a Phelps clone and comprised 60% of the 1996 blend, provides compelling evidence that this ranch is an excellent site for the variety. Its knockout aromas of raspberry, roasted meat and brown spices lead to lovely inner-mouth complexity and dense, noble tannins.