1997 Cabernet Sauvignon

During the course of my visit with Ric Forman, this veteran winemaker expressed his opposition to what he described as "huge-alcohol, unfiltered, cloudy wines with uncertain aging potential." As Forman explained, "there are two kinds of sediment in wine: inorganic sediment, which is color precipitation and is normal, and organic sediment like yeasts, bacteria and pigments still in solution. This second kind of stuff basically rots in the bottle and detracts from the ageability of the wine. It's bad to overdo filtration, but it's necessary to bottle a clear wine without organic sediment. It's essential not to hurt a wine's components if one is to capitalize on the wine's potential." Forman admits his tastes have changed over time and that he is now going for softer tannins and richer mouth feel by picking later. "I don't like shrill wines; at home I drink mostly merlot, especially Pomerol. One of the reasons you need fully mature grapes is so you don't have to do very long macerations to get big, broad flavors because that risks losing the fruit."

Ric Forman replanted his original vineyard in 1997, switching to denser "Pomerol spacing," with vines running up and down the slope. Until the new vines come into production, his red wines beginning with the '97s will come almost entirely from Thorvilos Vineyard, his joint venture with David Abreu, the vineyard manager behind many of the North Coast most prized wines (Forman makes Abreu's cabernet, which comes from the old Madrona Vineyard on the other side of St. Helena). Forman's reds are suppler and more complete than ever before, and rank as wonderful values by the standards of California wine today. Forman himself is appalled by current pricing in California, especially by upstarts who want $75 a bottle for their first vintage of cabernet. At the same time, however, he is concerned that maintaining stable pricing for his wines when prices elsewhere are skyrocketing will send the wrong message to consumers.