Growing Conditions

Established in 2010, our Cabernet Sauvignon is hand crafted by the legendary Nils Venge from grapes grown exclusively in our historic Pellet Vineyard®, a site that has been producing grapes for over 150 years. The Pellet Vineyard’s origin begins in 1859, when pioneer winemaker Henry Alphonse Pellet was hired by John Patchett to make wine from his grapes near the city of Napa. Charles Krug had also begun to make wine in 1858, and Henry Pellet became the second commercial wine maker in Napa County. Formally established in 1863, the Pellet Vineyard was among the first vineyards in Napa Valley intended for producing grapes for wine for consumers at large, rather than family & friends. In 1863, Pellet purchased 45 acres of land south of the town of St. Helena next to his neighbor, Dr. G.B. Crane, and planted 38 acres in vineyards. Our label depicts the dawn of the age of electrification, the era when Pellet illuminated the path towards modern viticultural and winemaking methodology, and with it, the high quality and age-worthy wines that define Napa Valley.

2015 was another near-perfect vintage, on par, if not better, than 2013, yielding another crop of smaller-berried fruit that produced a intense wine, and should stand out for decades to come. Compared to last year, 2014 produced smaller berries, which means a higher ratio of skins to juice, leading to higher levels of color and tannin. We had a few heat spikes in late July, and the weather was generally dry, warm even and consistent throughout the season. We picked the Cabernet under ideal conditions in mid September, and expect 2015 will turn out to be yet another new pinnacle for our Estate - triple back to back stellar vintages following 2012 and 2013 in our opinion, with 2015 having a bit of an edge at the moment.

Harvest

September 14th, 2015

Bottling

June 20th, 2017

Winemaking

We hand sorted our grapes both prior to and after de-stemming, and following a four day whole berry maceration and cold soak, we began primary fermentation. After nearly three weeks, the wine was gently pressed-off and racked to 80% new Darnajou, Ermitage, and Tarransaud 36 month-aged tight grain French Oak barrels to complete a slow secondary fermenta- tion for another few months. This wine is still in barrel under development, is showing amazing saturation of color, and as with 2012, will be bottle aged for around 18 months before its fall 2017 release.