Tasting notes

In the glass, our 2005 Napa Valley Cabernet shows adeep, dense, black ruby color. It offers complex aromatics of berry, cedar, licorice, and classic Cabernet which, combined with its rich, underlying fruit concentration, should please the most discriminating wine lover. In the mouth it is wonderfully smooth, full-bodied and balanced, with attractive berry and spice notes, along with rich, fine grained Cabernet tannins. Tasty today, this wine is built in the traditional Montelena style, so that it will also definitely develop nicely with a few years of cellar time.

Rating

The winery continues to turn out a strong Cabernet Sauvignon from vineyards in the Calistoga area. This is a big production item (10,000 cases), and tends to be a good value for a high-class Napa Cabernet. The 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon (22,000 cases) is a beauty. Savory black currant fruit notes intermixed with some licorice, underbrush, and spice jump from the glass of this medium to full-bodied, smoothly textured, beautifully elegant wine meant to be served and drunk in its first 10-12 years of life. This clearly has the fingerprints of Chateau Montelena’s Bo Barrett and his father Jim Barrett, but at a much lower price point, and for that reason seems an ideal steakhouse Cabernet that gives both value and pleasure. Robert Parker 90 points (Dec 2007)

Wine maker notes

The mild and uneventful 2005 vintage presented ideal ripening weather. We anticipated optimal crop yields, juice quality, fruit flavors and chemistry. And because this overall weather pattern essentially extended the growing season, we began harvest much later than average. But once we finally ripped into the red grapes there was a massive “tsunami” of them: Cabernet, Zinfandel and Merlot! A solid and steady picking schedule, with a daily crush of 13 to 40 tons, continued for 18 days. It was an awesome period of ideal weather and harvest activity, during which we took in an amazing 473 tons of fruit.

Technical notes

This vintage has excellent potential. I feel that is shows strong similarities to 1986, in which we enjoyed delicious, fully mature fruit without excess sugar, and with good acidity. We could not have ordered better weather in 2005: when we needed a little heat, it warmed up; when we needed a little less heat, it cooled down. And in a vintage when many wineries might have had to shut down for lack of tank space, we never did. Our ability to maintain our balance during the compressed and hectic harvest resulted in a finely balanced wine which, after all, is what really matters.