2008 Cabernet Sauvignon Eisele Vineyard Napa Valley

Following the worst frost here since 1971 in April of 2008, the growing season of 2009 was much more benign, said Bart Araujo. As the Eisele Vineyard, one of California's great cabernet sites, is a very warm spot, leaf-pulling is not practiced here. So the estate was spared the calamity that many other North Coast wineries brought on themselves by removing leaves to hasten ripening just before a freakish two-day heat spike. Among recent changes at this topnotch property: there's no more viognier in the sauvignon blanc bottling as of vintage 2008; the Altagracia second wine has included some purchased Napa Valley cabernet and merlot since the same vintage and thus is now technically a non-estate bottling; and Nigel Kinsman, who previously directed winemaking at Krupp Estate, took over as winemaker in September of 2010, with Francoise Peschon continuing to oversee the winemaking program here.

Winemaker Matt Taylor described 2008 as a season of extremes, beginning with serious loss of crop due to spring frost. The berries were small, the amount of juice per ton of grapes was low, and the fruit was hard to extract, he said. The wine in the early going is brooding and tannic, consulting winemaker Francoise Peschon told me, adding that the 2007 and 2005 growing seasons here yielded a more elegant style of wine. I was struck again on this visit by the high quality of the estate's sauvignon blanc, which now includes little or no viognier. "Now our older vines don't need the expressiveness of viognier, which gave the wine an exotic signature," said consulting winemaker Francoise Peschon, noting that the dominant sauvignon musque component was already plenty aromatic.