2001 Cabernet Sauvignon (Rutherford)

Thanks to the purchase of Etude by Beringer, Tony Soter will soon have access to 100 acres of pinot noir planted in 2000, and his Heirloom pinot will eventually come from a single site on the estate vineyard near Durell Vineyard.Among other new developments here are a couple of limited cabernet bottlings from Rutherford and St. Helena fruit, and a varietal cabernet franc.Soter, incidentally, finds the cabernet tannins a bit less tight-grained in 2003 than in 2002 and considers the new crop of wines somewhat lighter. He is now stressing his vines earlier in the growing season, and he believes that this has enabled them to hold up better in the very hot and dry periods that have characterized recent Septembers in California's NorthCoast.