2010 Cabernet Sauvignon
Diamond Mountain District
Single Vineyard
“Crossing Into Sunlight Vineyard”

Once in a purple moon you look up and detect all the planets and constellations have wondrously aligned. And, perhaps with glass in hand, you’ll spy a shooting star of exceptional brightness and illumination. With that in mind we proudly present our 2010 “Crossing into Sunlight” Cabernet from Diamond Mountain.

This is definitely a wine worth taking time to savor. If creating a your own private “Napa vinous experience” sounds fun then settle into your best chair. If you’re seeking sauce and flash–a fruit bomb libation that awkwardly hums a single note because it doesn’t know the words–then look elsewhere. This Cabernet is about refinement and finesse, wine which politely asks you to sit and contemplate the essence of the Cabernet grape as it slowly emerges from the glass. Give it time and you’ll find the 2010 is eminently complex in aromatic display and invites a Bordeaux sense of presence on the palate. It’s a style that may have gone out of favor–replaced by a mindset of “mine is bigger and oakier than yours”–but this is true and unadulterated old-school Napa and reminds you why the mountain vineyards surrounding the Napa valley produce stellar red wines of top caliber.

Winemaker Notes
A very elegant and structured wine layered with radiant fruit. Flows from the glass with an initial focus on ripe dark fruit leading with cassis and black and red fruits. It takes 30 minutes or more to really open and appreciate. The wine shows fabulous energy through the mid palate right to the finish, where a closing blast of dark fruit again saturates the palate. Blackberry jam, sweet grilled herbs, sage, cassis, tobacco and spices are woven together, leading to a soft and opulent end point. Spiced chocolate, espresso and elements of crushed stone—with a superb mouth staining texture—complete the finish. The wine’s sheer density almost hides the Diamond Mountain tannins, but they are nicely present and the wine will ultimately benefit from a couple of years in the cellar but eminently drinkable now.