Premier Cabernet Collection Preview - Ghielmetti Vineyard, Clone 337

We had a wonderful turnout last week for the release of our Premier Cabernet Collection - Clone 30 offering. This wine, fewer than 100 cases of which were produced, was one of two releases we felt was of great enough quality to be accorded our highest quality designation.

In conjunction with this release, we previewed the first of the 2008 Premier Cabernet wines...the Ghielmetti Vineyard, Clone 337. For this wine fewer than 50 cases will be available. Consistently producing a wine with very rich red and dark fruit notes, the 2008 Clone 337 was the first vintage that this clone stepped it up a notch and yielded a wine, not only with the richness we prize, but also with a structure that portends ageability.

This is a wine that Cabernet lovers should have in their collection. Elegant, complex, and delicious, this wine is extremely limited and will not be around long. Click here to be among the first to reserve your three-pack of Clone 337. Tasting notes are below:

In the nose, aromas of black cherry and cassis liqueur dominate while underpinnings of licorice, cocoa powder, and subtle tobacco enhance the wine's aromatic complexity. On entry, lush dark fruit flavors come to the fore first, but as the wine aerates, fruit gives way to licorice and caramel and the subtle oak and tobacco aromatics become more forceful flavors. Wines of this distinction tend to show their true quality after time in bottle or glass. So too with this wine. After several hours in the decanter, all aspects of this wine blossom: fruit gains more intensity, mid-pa;ate shows more depth, and the chewy finishing tannins presage the capacity to age. This Cabernet will benefit from several years of bottle age, beginning to show all of its grandeur in 2014. With care, this wine should age effortlessly through 2020. Fewer than 150 three-packs and a small number of magnums were produced in this vintage.

07 Cabs Finally Arrive!

2007 is one of those vintages that we will be talking about 20 years from now. It is opulent, complex, and age-worthy. And I have been waiting for 2 years to share it!

The first of the vintage to be available is also one of our best: the 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon - Ghielmetti Vineyard, Clone 4 is the first of our two Premier Cabernet Collection wines to debut.

The Premier Cabernet Collection is comprised of the best expressions of 100% Cabernet that the Steven Kent Winery produces. In this vintage only 8 barrels out a total of 127 (6.3%) were deemed of great enough quality to earn the Premier Cabernet Collection classification.

Just 4 barrels each (roughly 90 cases of each wine, packaged in 3-packs) were produced. Based upon the response to the 2006 vintage, these wines will not last long. Click Here to Order this Wine before it's gone!

Cabernet Sauvignon - Ghielmetti Vineyard, Clone 4 Notes:

This powerhouse wine emphasizes aromatic notes of semi-sweet chocolate, graphite, mocha, cassis, and black cherry liqueur. On entry, rich and viscous flavors of dark fruit, licorice, and cocoa unfurl slowly (much more organoleptic complexity and clarity of structure come through after several hours of decanting) leading to a broadening of tannins through the mid-palate. On the finish, the full tannic scope of the wine comes through as the flavors show lengthy persistence. The 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon, Clone 4 is less herbaceous than it was in 2006, trading in a subtle exotic wood for more power and age-worthiness. This Cabernet will benefit from several years of bottle age, beginning to show all of its grandeur in 2014. With care, this wine should age effortlessly through 2020.

Premier Cabernet Collection - 2007 Ghielmetti Vineyard - Clone 4

The 2007 vintage of Cabernets is the best we have yet produced.

While this growing year offered that extremely rare combination of world-class quality and higher-than-average volume for California as a whole, for the Steven Kent Winery, this vintage will once and for all dispel any doubts of the Livermore Valley's ability to grow Cabernet equal in quality to any other growing area.

The two Premier Cabernet Collection wines that will be released in 2010 achieve a level of richness and complexity that we not seen yet.

The Cabernet Sauvignon - Ghielmetti Vineyard, Clone 4 is significantly denser in fruit with a broader mid-palate and lengthier tannins than the 2006 PCC release. The richness and dark fruit on entry and in the mid-palate in 2006 is magnified substantially in 07. There are more non-fruit aromatics at play in the new wine, and there is significantly more structural tannin on the finish to balance out the viscosity of the wine's front end and to insure great longevity.

Only 240 three-packs and a small number of magnums were produced in this vintage. First priority for ordering is given to those who purchased last year's wine. The next priority is reserved for those who have signed up on our INTEREST LIST. The ordering period will begin on September 17th for those on the Interest List.

20 years from now, we'll still be talking about this vintage. Don't miss out.

Clone 191...Best for Last?

One of the most exciting things about wine for me is that it is a living thing, constantly changing (for both good and bad), different from the first sip to the last, from the first bottle to the final one in the case.

When I was choosing barrels for our Premier Cabernet Collection wines from the 2006 vintage, the Cabernet Sauvignon - Ghielmetti Vineyard, Clone 191 was my second or third favorite of the grouping. It had the best structure for long-term aging, but it was also slightly monolithic in its flavors and aromas at that time.

It is 18 months later, and we are now pouring this new wine in the Barrel Room. What was largely a tannic wine with dark (if undifferentiated) fruit, is now showing that same great, broadly tannic structure - especially from the mid-palate back - but with layers of fruit aromatics and flavors that are terrifically complex.

The dark fruit has become black cherry, cassis, and raspberry; the non-fruit aromatics are now tobacco, cedar and semi-sweet chocolate. This wine has become a very beautiful example of how good Cabernet from the Livermore Valley can be.

Only 192 three-packs were produced, and only 80 remain. Click here to order this wonderful wine before it is gone. $300/three-pack.

New Premier Cabernet Collection Debut

Our Mission at the Steven Kent Winery has always been to make Cabernet Sauvignon that equals in quality Cabernet made in any other appellation. Hailing from the too-little-esteemed Livermore Valley, we have had to work harder to prove that we belong.

After 10 years of making Cabernet here, I am even more sure now than I was back in the beginning (with that first blush of youthful excitement) that the Livermore Valley is capable of growing the kind of fruit we need to see our Mission through. And with the release of our first Premier Cabernet Collection wines, I think we are beginning to show the promise of the Valley.

On November 1st we will debut the third wine in the series (the first two having sold out quickly), the Cabernet Sauvignon - Ghielmetti Vineyard, Clone 30.

This wine is a study in the tension and balance between power and elegance. Displaying very intense dark berry, cassis, cigar box, and toasty oaks aromas, the wine is wonderfully big and defined in the nose. While some wines have very broad tannins that bleed off quickly, this Cabernet has very focused, substantial tannins from entry all the way through a long finish. Though the elements of ageability are present in abundance, the wine has a hefty silkiness in the mid-palate that sets up well in opposition to the tannins so that overall, the feeling is one of elegance and restraint.

This wine is perhaps the greatest that we have yet made. Only 180 three-packs (fewer than 50 cases!) were produced. It is available only in three-packs and the limit is 2 packs per person. The price is $300 per pack.

The Cabernet Sauvignon - Ghielmetti Vineyard, Clone 30 will be available for purchase starting November 1, 2008 and will be released in March 2009. Join our Interest List to have the opportunity of ordering this wine and for more information.

We will do our best to fully fill your order; please accept our apologies if we are unable to do so due to demand.

Back to the Beginning

To find the killer of his father, Inigo Montoya follows the advice of fellow n'er do well, Vizini, and "goes back to the beginning."


To reclaim our Cabernet soul, we are going back to our original mission of focusing our attention on producing world-class, small-lot Cabernets that tell a story about a special place. While our production has never been large compared to more well-known brands, we will be concentrating a lot more energy in sucking the marrow from our Cabernet sites to provide the biggest small "wow" we can.

Beginning with the sold-out releases of our first two Premier Cabernet Collection wines (Ghielmetti Vineyard, Clone 4 and Smith Ranch, Clone 8) in November, our goal is to produce 4-5 Cabernets per year that our indelibly linked to a site and philosophy of winemaking. While the first two wines released this year number fewer than 30 cases in production, the PCC wines released next year will be in the 50-case range.

Smallness has its advantages. We strongly believe in a business model that favors the face-to-face transaction: we like to know who is drinking our wine and whether we succeeded in its production. We can't know this if we are producing thousands of cases of wine. We also like to be able to offer our club members and winery guests something unique and new each time they come to visit. Most importantly, though, is the ability to control more of the things that bear directly on quality.

Our goal has always been to produce Cabernet as great as any in the world. Going back to this original impulse, this first commandment, will give us the opportunity to succeed or fail.