Our team was so impressed with the 1997 Chateau Montelena at our last tasting that we immediately decided to explore that Napa vintage in greater depth. The results of that exploration are reported herein.
The Vintage
We were not the only ones impressed by the 1997 Napa vintage. According to Vinfolio Blog, the 1997 vintage is considered "nearly perfect" by most critics in that "it is rich and concentrated, yet it balances those flavors with plenty of complexity and nuances ..." A summary of the vintage notes from three sources are provided in the table below.
The Wines
Attendees were instructed to bring at least 1 bottle of 1997 Napa Cabernet Sauvignon to the exclusion of the 1997 Chateau Montelena. The wines brought are shown in the chart below, along with their geographical distribution and selected characteristics.
The Tasting
The wines were divided into flights based on geography depicted in the chart above and fell naturally into the following categories:
- Knights Valley, Sonoma (Peter Michael Les Pavots)
- Northern Napa Valley (Philip Togni, Beringer Private Reserve, Viader, Spottswoode)
- Upper Central Napa Valley (Beaulieu Vineyard, Heitz, Insignia)
- Lower Central Napa Valley (Opus One, Dominus)
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| Tasting Team: The Herbst view |
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| Tasting Team: The Wittenstein view |
Flight 1: Peter Michael Les Pavots
Author -- Beautiful nose. Dark fruit, red fruit, baking spice, clove, and some sapidity. On the palate, creaminess, forest floor, good acid, and drying tannins. Balanced.
Sean -- Tobacco and dark fruit on the nose. Palate was smooth with nicely resolved tannins. Balanced. Elegant with more dark fruit on the palate with something green, perhaps green peppers. Pleasantly surprised by this since I haven’t had too many stand out Peter Michael wines; this one did stand out.
Flight 2a: Phillip Togni
Author -- Black currant, blackberries, sandalwood, forest floor, herbs, and mint on the nose. Rich black fruit, spice, and resolved tannins on the palate. Balanced.
Sean -- Nice balance and long finish. Spice box on the nose along with dark berry fruit, a hint of clove perhaps. On the mouth loads of dark cherry. My favorite of the flight.
Flight 2b: Beringer Private Reserve
Author -- Elegant. Plum and dark fruit. Soft finish.
Sean -- Immediately hit with fruit, so quite fruit forward for its age. Plum on the nose, some blackberry with a hint of something smoky. On the mouth more blackberry and plum as well as some coffee. Good finish.
Flight 2c: Viader
Author -- Phenolic, acetone, VA
Sean -- Bottle flawed with VA, so nail polish on the nose. Had thought maybe it would blow off, but never did. First sip or two I thought was drinking, but never really did.
Flight 2d: Spottswoode -- Dark fruit on the nose along with leather, cedar, and mint. Dark plum, mint, and cherries on the palate. Balanced. Long finish.
Sean -- I’m typically a fan of Spottswoode, having had a few 07s in the past. This wasn’t one of the better Spottswoode bottles I have had. I believe most appeared to enjoy it, but I thought it average at best. Had some spice box on the nose, some bell peppers, and forest floor, which is something I like in a wine. On the palate though, it felt off. It was a bit tangy, tart, or sour. Not sure if I took much from the taste, but maybe some dark cherry and coffee, chocolate, but that is about it.
The Philip Togni was the consensus wine of the flight.
Flight 3a: Beaulieu Vineyards Georges de la Tour
Author -- Black cherry, blackberry, allspice, leather, and mint. Nose carries through to palate. Medium finish.
Sean -- Lovely nose, very perfumed, spicy, earth and cedar, but not sure I picked up that famous Rutherford dust, which I took to mean like a cocoa powder, but a nice nose nonetheless. On the palate big fruit, dark cherry and other dark fruit was prevalent.
Flight 3b: Heitz Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon
Author -- Mint, eucalyptus, cedar, cigar box, black olive, and tea on the nose. Rich dark fruit on the palate along with mint, licorice, and eucalyptus. Long finish.
Sean -- This was a show stopper for me. Easily the best wine of the flight and the best wine of the tasting. Older Heitz is always interesting. Lovely nose, spices and herbs, a bit of that eucalyptus one finds in their Martha’s Vineyard wine. Very much a smooth operator. Nicely balanced with a great finish and on the mouth dark cherry and blackberry, black currant, and something anise, or licorice maybe? Just a lovely wine. Makes me want to attend a Heitz tasting next (hint-hint).
Flight 3c: Insignia
Author -- Somewhat disappointing as, back in the day, this would have been in the upper echelon of the wines on show here tonight. Black fruit, iodine, tea, leather, and earth. Black fruit, leather, and herbs on the palate.
Sean -- Big Cali wine. Typical of what one comes to expect from California in terms being a massive wine. On the nose I was hit immediately with smoky meat, which put me in mind of a Northern Rhone as well as that was like fruitcake (I hate fruitcake). Felt that on the mouth it was a bit off. Had a bit of a sour quality to me. I wonder if it would have benefited from more air? What I could taste was big dark fruit, some hints of chocolate and mocha. Wasn’t terrible, but not my favorite.
The Heitz was the wine of the flight.
Flight 4a: Opus One
Author -- Black currant, pencil lead, cassis, leather, tobacco, and spice on the nose. Dark fruit, cassis, tobacco, and leather on the palate. Medium tannins and acid and a long finish.
Sean -- Very much like a Bordeaux on the nose with forest floor, some hint of graphite, and something smoky, or tobacco-like, and perhaps leather later on as it sat in the glass. Tasted a bit young or more tannic than I thought it would be. Not sure if it needed more time in the bottle or more air in the decanter. Left me wondering how it would be in another year or two. Taste of dark red fruits, but while not bad at all, wasn’t as good of an Opus One like I’ve had before, but decent.
Flight 4b: Dominus
Author -- Dark fruit, leather, cedar, and graphite on both the nose and palate. Additionally earth and mint on the palate. I am partial to Dominus and Trotanoy so I was rooting for this wine. It delivered complexity.
Sean -- Big wine, but in a good way. Paired nicely with the food, which was a short rib. On the nose was graphite, some spice box, and smoke. On the mouth, big red fruits, currants, dark cherry and just a touch of coffee. Of this flight I enjoyed this the most, so giving the wine of the flight to the Dominus.
Dominus was indeed the wine of the flight.
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| The full Monty |
We set out, in this exercise, to explore the character of 1997 Napa Cabernet Sauvignon, based on our very positive experience with a Chateau Montelena Estate Cab of a similar vintage. The vintage did not disappoint, providing high-quality juice from the first bottle we tasted to the last (The exception to this rule was the Viader which had succumbed, somewhere along the way, to the vagaries of volatile acidity.). Complex, balanced wines with dark-fruited noses, accompanying tertiary aromas and flavors, richness on the palate, with great acid levels, resolved tannins, and lengthy finishes were the order of the day (night, actually).
Surprisingly for me, the wine of the night was the Heitz Cabernet Sauvignon. This was not one of the vaunted single-vineyard offerings of the estate; rather, it was the remnant of the single-vineyard-offering construction process. Not only did it represent its estate well, it trounced, in the estimation of this group, some big guns along the way.
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