2013 Cabernet Sauvignon Estate

As I have written here in the past, Vineyard 7 & 8 is in the middle of a significant transition that is likely to take a few years given that changes in the production of wine are never especially fast. After all, there is only one harvest a year. Winemaker Martha McClellan arrived in 2014 and immediately instituted some of the stylistic choices that inform her wines. These include a good amount of fermentation in barrel, extended time on the skins and aging in barrel that is on the longer side of things by Napa Valley standards. McClellan arrived late in 2014, and 2015 was a freakish vintage, so I will not be surprised if the wines from those years end up being works in progress. The fruit I saw just before the 2016 harvest was as close to perfect as it gets, which means those wines will give a very good indication as to the true potential of this Spring Mountain site. Proprietor Wes Steffens has repositioned Vineyard 7 & 8 as a pure estate winery and spun out the wines he makes with non-estate fruit into a second label called Correlation.

Vineyard 7 & 8 is in the midst of what looks like a pretty significant transition. Winemaker Martha McClellan took over with the 2014 harvest, so it is too soon to know exactly where this small, family-run estate is headed. Where it has been is obvious. For the last few years, the wines have been solid but not exciting nor particularly expressive of site. Big, oaky, chocolatey Cabernets can basically be made anywhere. But with its privileged position atop Spring Mountain, Vineyard 7 & 8 appears to have more potential than that. We will see. For now, McClellan has mixed up the selection of coopers, lowered toast levels and sought gentler extractions. The 2012s and 2013s were both made by Luc Morlet, while McClellan and proprietor Wes Steffens put together the final blends and bottled the wines, although by the time McClellan arrived those wines were essentially finished. At the end of the day, though, the ultimate responsibility for quality rests with the proprietors.

Vineyard 7 & 8 is currently undergoing a transition. Martha McClellan has taken over the winemaking reins from Luc Morlet with the 2014 harvest. Proprietors Wes Steffens and McClellan told me they plan to pick a little later than was the norm. Indeed, when I stopped by in September 2014, all the Cabernet was still on the vine, while a good portion of the harvest was well under way or finished elsewhere. Steffens and McClellan also plan to do more small lot fermentations in barrel and give the wines more time in oak than was previously the case. Going forward, the focus will be on estate grown fruit, which means the Russian River Chardonnay and Oakville Cabernets are gone from the lineup. It's great to see the Steffens family taking a greater role in the direction of their estate. Although Luc Morlet is a very talented winemaker, there is no question there is a certain sameness to his wines across his various projects, something that, to be fair, can also be the result of owners who don't really know what they want to achieve. Needless to say, it will be interesting to see how things develop at Vineyard 7 & 8 in the coming years. In the past, these have always been fairly extracted Cabernets. My sense is these rugged hillside sites require considerable care.