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.

Barrel Surfing should be an Olympic Sport

One of the most enjoyable times for me is the opportunity I get to work with our barrels. At any given time we might have 300-400 barrels of wine (of various vintages) aging in the cellar.

The barrels are segregated by wine lot, and I am usually focused enough to pick a lot or two to taste through at one time. The tools of my trade: a tape recorder, a glass, a thief, chalk, and a big bucket.

Generally, each oak growing region has its own set of characteristics of aroma and flavor; the amount of wood tannin it will contribute to the wine, and how quickly it will impart it. Toast levels, toasted heads/non-toasted heads, older oak, heads from one country and staves from another...all add a further level of complexity to the evaluation of wines and to the finished product.

What tasting through barrels teaches you rapidly is that each barrel is so unique that it is its own wine. So if there are 10 barrels of wine in a lot of Ghielmetti Vineyard Cabernet, I am actually trying to make sense of 10 different wines and how each might go together, which wines might work in the final blend, and which one(s) might be singularly great enough for the Premier Cabernet Collection, for example.

After recording the date, barrel grouping, and barrel number in my recorder, I will thief a little wine into the glass and record my impressions of the wine's aromas; then I'll take a sip, spit in my big bucket then talk about the flavors, and structure. I take the recordings and transcribe the details into an excel file so that I can "see" the wine again down the road when it comes time to put the blends together.

I repeat anywhere from 6-50 times depending on the size of the wine lots. There's usually a lot of used wine in the bucket and a fair amount on my clothes too. But I generally come away with a pretty good understanding of the progress the specific lots of wine are making, which barrels are the most outstanding, and what the blends will taste like when they are released.

More specifically, though, I come away with a greater understanding of my blending strengths and weaknesses, the style of wines I like, and I how I can be as easily influenced as any novice wine drinker by preconceptions and assumptions.

Not only is there a practical purpose for surfing barrels, but it is the best education a wine lover can get. It is exciting and humbling at the same time.

Ghielmetti Vineyard - The Bordeaux Varieties

The Ghielmetti Vineyard, our estate site, is rapidly showing itself to be the best site in the Livermore Valley for Cabernet Sauvignon and the other classic Bordeaux varieties. Planted in 2001-2002, with grafting of several blocks done in 2006, the site is supplying nearly all the fruit for the Steven Kent Winery estate project.

Over the next two years, we will have released wines in each of the levels of our "Cabernet Pyramid" (more detail in a future post), and each of them will have been made from the great fruit from this site. Click on this link to see a Google map of the actual vineyard. Click on the colored blocks for more detail about the grapes planted there.

The picture to the right is of Mourvedre before harvest.

Tasting Monte Bello

Ridge Winery's flagship wine, Monte Bello, has consistently been one of the great Cabernet-based wines made in California. In many ways it is an inspiration for me as we embark on producing our own Bordeaux blend. Ridge has proven that you don't need be in Napa to make world-class wine, and you don't necessarily need to be the darling of the mainstream wine press to succeed.

Monte Bello is definitely "of a style." In tasting through their lots of Merlot, Cabernet, Cabernet Franc, and Petit Verdot (some of which will make it into the final 2008 Monte Bello blend), I was continually surprised by the modest alcohol levels in the wines.

Their wines are absolutely appropriate for their site (high elevation, older vineyards, etc.) so alcohol levels of under 13% are intuitively understandable. The Livermore Valley just won't produce that kind of fruit...and there is nothing wrong with that. The fine-wine world needs wines like Monte Bello: very tight when young, not particularly fruit-forward, but with amazing tannin and incredible ageability. And it needs a wine like our upcoming Bordeaux blend too: fantastic complexity, great mouthfeel and length, significant tannin...the finest wine we have yet made.

The Table - Tasting Like It Ought To Be

On February 28, 2009, The Table debuts in the Steven Kent Barrel Room. Created to shine a spotlight on Library selection and small-lot offerings, The Table is the next step in the evolution of world-class wines and wine presentation.


Available on weekends by reservation only, up to six guests at a time will enjoy a one-hour guided tour of four spectacular wines paired specifically with artisanal cheeses and charcuterie.

Just a few openings remain for our first weekend. Please call Tracey Morretta at 925-243-6448 or tracey@stevenkent.com to reserve your place.

The menu for February 28-March 31 is below.

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Wines and cheeses are arranged in suggested order & pairing. Please feel free to mix and match to come up with your own pairings.

2000 Cabernet Sauvignon, Livermore Valley

This wine yields up base aromas of cassis, bittersweet chocolate, and the dark stone fruits, and top notes of toasty oak, tobacco, and newly-turned earth. The wine has a seductive unctuousness in the mouth and balancing acidity that carries the multiple flavors throughout the extremely long finish.

Black Diamond Cheddar- Canada

Rich, full flavor and a pleasant sharpness developed through careful and natural aging by one of Canada's most acclaimed cheese producers. This cheese is aged two years.

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2001 Cabernet Sauvignon, Livermore Valley

The wine is inky purple, very opaque with bright edge. Aromatically, this Cabernet exhibits aspects ranging from cassis, tobacco and sweet oak to bittersweet chocolate, mint, and freshly-tuned earth. While heady now, time will only serve to open aromas up and frame the brazen force of youth. In the mouth, the wine is highly tannic and profoundly rich. Flavors of dark fruits and oak greet one up-front and persist on a long finish

Cave Aged Gruyere-Switzerland

Aged in natural caves where the air and natural bacteria endow the cheese with deep complexity, this cheese matures for at least a year. This cheese is smooth in texture and has rich, beefy flavors that are tempered by hints of apples and pears.

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2002 Cabernet Sauvignon, Livermore Valley

For centuries, the Bordelais have used Petit Verdot in the blend to provide their wines with darker color and mor tannin. This wine is a perfect demonstration of how well the two varieties work together. This vintage is prfoundly dark purple with a core verging on the black. In the nose, one detects intense aromas of black plum and cassis fruit, underpinned by a layer of non-fruit aromatics: pencil shavings, wetted earth, creme brulee oakiness, dark chocolate, and subtle lavender perfume.

Chatelain Camembert-France

Camembert is an AOC (or name-protected) cow's milk cheese from the Normandy region in northern France. It has a soft, white, bloomy rind; luxurios ivory paste; and buttery, grassy flavor. The taste of a ripe Camembert is reminiscent of wild mushrooms.

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2006 Premiere Cabernet Collection Cabernet Sauvignon, Clone 30, Ghielmetti Vineyard, Livermore Valley

The Premier Cabernet Collection represents the pinnacle of our 100% Cabernet winemaking each vintage. Meant to show the excellence of the Livermor Valley The 2-3 best barrels of a larger lot were choosen for this wine. Clone 30 is also called "See" clone, named for Harry See of (See's Candy family), sourced from his Napa Valley vineyard. Bottled without filtration or fining.

Ader Kase Reserve Blue- Seymour Dairy, Wisconsin

A higher fat blue that brings back memories of great blues from Germany such aas Cambozola and Montagnolo. Boasting a melt in your mouth texture with hints of earthy mushroom flavors, this is definitely not your average blue cheese.

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Bresaola, Salumeria Biellese

Want something leaner or just a little break from pork? Then Salumeria Biellese's Bresaola is the thing. Humanely raised beef is rubbed with salt and spices and dry cured to a shockingly red finish. The flavor is incredibly delicate, with strong notes of clove, and get this, a floral finish. It amy sound weird for meat but it's elegant and smooth AND a perfect accompaniment to Cabernet.

Norman Love - Cru Sauvage Chocolate - Cocoa Mass: 68% Origin: Bolivia
The world's first chocolate made from beans harvested from wild cacao trees growing in the beni region of northeastern Bolivia. This harmonious chocolate possesses fresh lemon and grapefruit notes, an intense dried plum bouquet, and an exquisite hint of vanilla.

Sometimes the Claims are True

When I started back in the business in 1996, I though I knew what I was doing (so wrong!) and thought I had the "magic bullets" figured out.

A wine glass that make your wine taste better...? and even more...a different shaped glass for each major variety? Come on..."I was born at night..." etc. All it took was one taste from a Riedel glass and we switched all of the old glasses out of the tasting room. We've been using Riedel exclusively since 1999.

In the next few weeks you'll see major changes in Steven Kent (more on that later!) including an upgrade to the Riedel Vinum Extreme glass pictured on the far right above. With its huge bowl this glass allows our Cabernets to taste more "open" at a younger age and showcases the structure of the wines much more dramatically than the smaller Ouverture glass did.

Though not a cheap proposition, providing our guests with a great glass to taste out of can only improve the wine drinking experience.

After all, if the experience and the wines aren't extraordinary, what's the sense in doing it?

Radius 4 - Last Wine of the Vintage

The wine making calendar is an odd one. On one hand there is the grape growing side of things...the annual harvest which has been set by Nature from time immemorial, and hasn't differed dramatically in the 5,000 years wine has been made.

On the wine making ledger, though, the calendar is really 3 years long for us. And now, I have finally reached the 2006 vintage's December 31st.

As I noted in the previous post, our 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon has been put together, and the last wine...Radius IV followed suit yesterday.

I will post tasting notes on the wine when it is released in June to members of our Future Release Program, but the vital statistics are: 70% Cabernet Sauvignon (40% McGrail Vyd, Clone 15, 20% Home Ranch, Clone 7, 10% McGrail Vyd, Clone 8); 10% each Ghielmetti Vineyard Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and Petit Verdot.

Over time the Radius release has evolved from a Cabernet, Syrah, Barbera blend to a more traditional Bordeaux blend. Concomitant with this evolution is a wine with more tannic heft, darker fruit, and a longer consumption arc. Given the quality of Bordeaux-variety fruit coming from our estate vineyards, this blend model (always subject to the vagaries of the vintage, of course) seems to be the right one for members of the Future Release Program.

2007 beckons. Hmmm, when exactly am I now?