Palate
Seductive kirsch, plum, and blueberry flavors glide along the palate with notes of cedar, duck fat, hazelnut, and cigar wrapper coalescing along the way. This wine is creamy textured, yet fresh, long, and delicious. The fine-grained tannins will help guide this young wine through the long life ahead of it.
Growing Conditions
Our Diamond Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon comes from exceptional, low-yielding vineyards with volcanic ash and gravelly loam soils in the Diamond Mountain appellation, nestled in the Mayacamas Range on the northwest side of Napa Valley. The sun-drenched mountain vineyards have late afternoon breezes that ripen the fruit slowly and evenly. Both sites are planted to extraordinary old vines on a steep incline with historic Napa field selections and produce age-worthy Cabernet Sauvignon with dark fruit, intense structure, minerality, and perfume.
Winemaking
Hand harvested in the cool early morning hours, the fruit was immediately subjected to rigorous selection by our three-tiered sorting process, including our cutting-edge optical sorter, with a goal of eliminating less-than-perfect berries. The berries were gently gravity-delivered to tank using our distinctive crane system, minimizing disruption of berry integrity. Cold soaks lasted five days and fermentations were managed via a combination of délestage, punch downs, and pumpovers. Extended maceration for four weeks fine-tuned our tannin profiles.
