A no messing around guide to the coolest things to eat, drink and do in Vancouver and beyond. Community. Not clickbait.

CORKAGE: On Festival Tasting Glasses And Tasting Notes From 10 Year Old Napa Cabs

by Amorita Bastaja | I might be getting old, but festival-style wine tastings just don’t do it for me anymore. Elbowing people out of the way for a chance at the spit bucket exhausts me, and I really hate the wine glasses that convention centers use. Of course, I go because there isn’t much opportunity otherwise to taste so much in such a short period of time.

Once year in, however, something really special rolls into town. Known as the Napa Valley Vintner’s Tour, it’s a small tasting that is all about quality, not quantity. The tour recently breezed through Vancouver, and even the bad glasses couldn’t hide how extraordinary these wines were.

Before the madness of the general tasting comes what is fast becoming my favourite way to discuss wine: the civilized, congenial seminar hosted by vintners. This year’s seminar was a retrospective on the 2001 vintage in Napa. 2001 was considered a banner year for Cabernet Sauvignon, with a warm start to the season resulting in great fruit set. The producers involved in this back vintage tasting were Signorello Estates, Clos du Val, Shafer, Heitz, Salvestrin and Cain Vineyards. Each wine was in a different stage of development. Some had a few years left in them, while others (perhaps like me) were starting to wear a little thin.

Ray Signorello offered his 2001 Cabernet first. The wine is aging gracefully, with a blood cherry colour. On the nose and palate, plums, dried red fruits and tobacco leaf, alongside a cedar-y, woodsy note. Up next was the Reserve from Clos du Val. Much more herbaceous than the Signorello, there were green, leafy notes underscored by dried fruits. I would consider this a ‘drink now’. Moving to the other end of the spectrum, the Shafer Hillside Select Stag’s Leap still carried lots of primary fruit flavours like cherry and plums. The oak was more prominent with vanilla and milk chocolate undertones.

My favourite of the line up was the Heitz Martha’s Vineyard. Good, fine tannins provided a structural backbone to the unusual nose and taste of eucalyptus and mint, mingled with blueberry and tobacco. This, according to the producer, is the consistent flavour profile of Martha’s Vineyard. The Salvestrin leaned towards a wine that was ready to drink; red brick in colour and leafy and tobacco-like on the palate. Finally, the Cain showed a distinct coffee/espresso note, alongside roasted meats. Given that the wines were ten years old, they were still showing impressively well.

———————————————————————————-

Amorita Bastaja is a manager at Legacy Liquor Store, the largest liquor store in British Columbia (located in the Athlete’s Village), and the Wine Editor of Scout. Her love of imbibing steered her through courses from the International Sommelier Guild and the Wine & Spirits Education Trust, and has taken her to many wine regions, including Washington State, Napa and Sonoma, Piemonte, Veneto, Tuscany, Abruzzo, Provence and all over the Okanagan Valley.