Vintage Story
Epistemological epiphany:
Life must be lived forwards,
but can only be understood backwards
Mercifully, life may be enjoyed sideways!
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Full Moon: February, 2006. Allen Dale Olson a/k/a the Pontiff of Palate, Story Inn’s Wine Connoisseur. Copyright 2006 Story Bed & Breakfast, LLP, d/b/a Story Inn, all rights reserved. |
CABERNET SAUVIGNON – a Wine for Winter
It’s cold outside, and you’re warming yourself with stews and roasts and steaks and grilled lamb. No time for delicacy, lightness, or cool. It’s time for a robust, masculine, ruby-colored, lengthy red cabernet sauvignon, preferably from Bordeaux or Napa Valley and preferably with a few years of bottle age. Nothing is any better for dinner on a bitterly cold January or February evening.
Cabernet sauvignon is the most widely renowned red wine but a relatively recent – mid 19th century – member of the fine wine category. Its renown was born in Bordeaux, still its power base. Since the 1970s, its second home has been Napa Valley. It’s a grape that requires a somewhat warm climate, and its slow ripening habit makes it undesirable for cool climates with early frosts in the fall. Yet it’s a relatively easy grape to grow and to vinify. Its thick stalks make it easy to harvest and those stalks produce a concentration of phenolics for deep color and longevity. Its small berries (or grapes), however, with thick skin and large pips yield a very tannic juice, one not particularly pleasant on the tongue, so the cabernet sauvignon is a grape in need of blending. In Bordeaux, generations of producers have learned to bring in merlot for softening, cabernet franc for aroma, and, occasionally petite verdot for “charm.” Blending percentages vary from year-to-year and chateau-to-chateau, but the formula has raised the red wines of Bordeaux to standards all other cabernet sauvignon producers strive for. The formula has had great success in California and in Chile, where a number of Bordelaise, including Lafite-Rothschild, have established wineries. Australians have blended their cabernets with syrah (shiraz), Italians with sangiovese, and Spaniards with tempranillo. Yes, the success of cabernet sauvignon has led to producers around the world giving it a try.
This famous grape is one of the few still produced to allow for aging. (Most wines these days are made for immediate consumption.) Those tannins that pucker the mouth when the wine is young allow for a long life, five to 30 years and often longer when the harvest is good and everything else works well. A few producers, especially in California, are trying to create a wine of 100% cabernet sauvignon, but most decide it isn’t worth the effort and so make use of blending.
Even a young cabernet can be astringent and tannic. One taster said it’s “for people who like to sleep outdoors, play rugby, and eat Brussels sprouts.” Tasting the same wine several years later, he’s amazed at how “complex, moderately alcoholic, and harmoniously balanced with fruit, oak, and other flavanoids.” Such a wine confirms an ancient belief that the gods in repentance for taking away the Garden of Eden, gave us the gift of the vine.
Vintage Story is an e-newsletter authored by Ole Olson and published by the Story Inn, and is available free of charge to all who appreciate good wine. Vintage Story is published at each full moon. The author and the Story Inn specifically authorize the republication, reprinting and circulation of any issue Vintage Story so long as due credit is given to the author and to the Story Inn (which holds the copyright).
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