Palate
On the palate, this bright and reflective ruby-colored wine is vivid and textured with considerable weight, revealing cherries and French vanilla with hints of graphite and cedar followed by smoky dark chocolate and lavender. This fantastically vibrant and concentrated wine promises to richly reward a few years of aging because of the superlative quality of the fruit and underlying and tannins.
Growing Conditions
Seavey's 23rd vintage of estate-produced Cabernet, the 2012, was made from grapes that came from vines grown on steep hillside blocks of the vineyard that we have been farming for 35 years. The 2012 growing season was nearly perfect, marked by mild and stable weather between May and October which created an ideal climate for grapevine growth and development followed by even and slow ripening. We carefully handpicked our hillside blocks in rolling lots at their optimum ripeness and then separately vinified and aged the different lots.
Winemaking
Winemaking followed classic Bordeaux methods with whole-berry fermentation. In the cool of the early morning harvest, grapes were promptly de-stemmed and the uncrushed berries were gently transferred into fermentation tanks. In order to carefully manage the tannins and resulting wine texture, the grapes were neither crushed nor run through a pump.
Aging
20 months 100% French Oak (60% new)
Appearance
Bright and reflective ruby-colored wine
