Wine reviews
Sleek, refined and elegant, showing rich layers of spicy oak, blackberry and wild berry, with cedar and herb nuances. Ends with a long, full finish that gains depth and detail, firming nicely on the finish. Drink now through 2029. 370 cases made. –JL
Nearly as prodigious is the 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon Beckstoffer to Kalon Vineyard, which is Clone 4 and Clone 6 blended together from the Beckstoffer To Kalon Vineyard, this is the highest in alcohol of the 2012s at 14.6%. It was aged in a combination of 50% new Darnajou and 50% new Taransaud barrels. This wine is one of the tighter, more backward of the 2012s, with more structure, tannin, muscle, a masculine personality, oodles of black and blue fruits and a massive mouthfeel, but is somehow much more primary and younger tasting than the other wines. Forget it for a few years and drink it over the following 20-25 years. The Schraders, working with well-known winemaking consultant Thomas Rivers Brown, continue to farm and produce some of the world’s greatest Cabernet Sauvignons from three fabulous Beckstoffer-owned vineyards: the To Kalon Vineyard in Oakville, the Georges III Vineyard in Rutherford and the Las Piedras Vineyard in St. Helena. To Kalon is gravelly, eluvial, loamy soils; Georges III Vineyard is an old creek bed; and Las Piedras Vineyard in St. Helena is planted on old river rock and gravelly loam. All of these blocks utilized for Schrader’s wines encompass over 25+ acres and are custom-farmed – as Fred Schrader likes to say, essentially “virtual vineyards,” even though they’re not owned by the Schraders. Their initial focus, which has proven so successful, is essentially a microscopic study of different clones planted in different blocks with exactly the same philosophy of viticulture, harvesting, winemaking, élevage and bottling. Production of all the 2012s, which was a slightly more generous and later harvest than 2013 with bigger berries, ranges from 200 cases for the Old Sparky and Georges III, to 520 for the CCS, 420 for the T6, 625 for the RBS, 370 for the Schrader, 620 for the LPV and 100 cases for the newest baby, the Colesworthy, which is a selection of the best barrels of their Las Piedras offering. Some of the other characteristics of these wines are that they all spend about 20 months in barrel, but the percentages of new Darnajou and new Taransaud varied from cuvée to cuvée, although the CCS is 100% new Darnajou, as are the Old Sparky and the Colesworthy. Finished alcohol on the 2012s is in line with other vintages, at 14.4%-14.6%. And in 2013, virtually identical numbers of 14.4%-14.6% were achieved. The consistency and the analytical aspects of the wines is mirrored in the incredible quality that Schrader has produced.-RP
The riveting 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon Beckstoffer To Kalon Vineyard boasts an opaque purple color along with aromas of smoky barbecue, vanillin, crème de cassis, blueberries, black raspberries, graphite and licorice. There are 370 cases of this huge, rich and thick, but oh, so pure 2012. Year-in and year-out this is one of the most interesting as well as fascinating group of wines and projects in Napa Valley. First, Schrader has two committed owners, secondly a brilliant winemaker in Thomas Brown, and thirdly, one of the true first-growth vineyard sites in all of Napa Valley, the famed Beckstoffer-owned To Kalon Vineyard in Oakville. There is also a new Beckstoffer vineyard in Oakville called Las Piedras. Additionally, they source grapes from the Beckstoffer Georges III Vineyard in Rutherford, several miles north of Oakville. In top vintages, Schrader’s Beckstoffer Cabernet Sauvignon-based wines can be as good as money can buy ... anywhere in the world. The Schraders are essentially giving consumers a microscopic, intense study of the differences between clones from one particular vineyard. Production levels range from 100-200 cases to as high as 400 cases. The total production is well under 1,800 cases of wine, even in such generous vintages as 2012. These offerings, which are aged 18-20 months in a majority of Darnajou French barrels with some Taransaud, are much more similar than dissimilar, but I think long-term aging will begin to reveal differences, and that’s the objective with these separate cuvees. All of these wines will keep for a minimum of 25-40 years. This is probably an overload of information for the casual drinker who just wants a great Napa Cabernet Sauvignon, but for the wine geeks, this kind of clonal study is fascinating. The cooler than normal 2010 vintage produced a group of wines with small production levels. The 2011s came from a small yielding vintage as well. Winemaker Thomas Brown and the Schraders had to deal with two large rainy scenarios that were followed by foggy conditions in early to mid-October that resulted in the formation of botrytis in the grape bunches. They seem to have come through this with flying colors in several of their cuvees, which are candidates for the wines of the vintage. The 2012s enjoyed an incredibly long hang time, and although the year was warm, there was only one serious heat spike that came at a time (in July where the temperature hit 105 degrees) that was not threatening to the vineyards. Thomas Brown thought the number of days between flowering and the veraison (when the color of the grapes changes from green to dark purple) was around 65-70 days, an unusually long time that bodes well for flavor and tannin development in the grape bunches. The 2012s are all huge, richly fruity wines that were primary when I tasted them. For that reason, I will keep my notes short, but there appears to be at least three candidates for perfect scores after another 8-9 months in new oak. -RP