2012 Cabernet Sauvignon Harbison Vineyard

Russell Bevan and his longtime partner Victoria De Crescenzo were in high spirits when I stopped by their Santa Rosa winery in January. Earlier that day, Bevan and De Crescenzo closed on the purchased of the Saunders Vineyard in Oakville, which gives them an additional 15-20 acres of top quality vineyard land, capping off an extraordinary run that only started a decade ago. Just as importantly, Bevan's winemaking has evolved pretty dramatically over the last few years. Bevan has always sought textural richness, but at times his wines were over extracted. Today, the wines are just as opulent as they have always been, but they are also significantly more polished. I tasted a number of Sonoma and Napa wines together, but Bevan opted only to show wines from sites he is confident he will have access to in the future rather than the entire range.

I caught Russell Bevan and his partner, Victoria DeCrescenzo, at the tail of the harvest and was only able to taste a few of their wines. I will report on the rest of the collection early next year. Bevan did a great job with his 2011s, especially in giving them much of the textural richness that is typical of these wines, no small feat in 2011. Vintage 2012 is much more up Bevan's alley in terms of providing better raw materials to make the wines he likes. I suspect much the same will be true of 2013. Savvy readers will note the presence of two new wines in this range, both from top sites, which I am sure goes a long way towards making up for the loss of Showket in the range.