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 Vintage1998 Label 1 of 42 
TypeRed
ProducerRodney Strong (web)
VarietyCabernet Sauvignon
Designationn/a
Vineyardn/a
CountryUSA
RegionCalifornia
SubRegionSonoma County
AppellationAlexander Valley
OptionsShow variety and appellation

Drinking Windows and Values
Drinking window: Drink between 2002 and 2008 (based on 133 user opinions)

Community Tasting History

Community Tasting Notes (average 89.5 pts. and median of 89 pts. in 2 notes) - hiding notes with no text

 Tasted by rbazinet on 5/23/2010 & rated 90 points: Similar to my previous note, except this one ironically seems a bit more youthful.
I debated if there was bricking, but there is no debate there were still tannins left in this. A great balance of red berries and oak. (2657 views)
 Tasted by rbazinet on 11/1/2008 & rated 89 points: Amazing what a well made $20 Cali cab can do. Mixed berries with oak balance out a solid nose. Rounded strawberries, oak, and smooth acids are holding this wine together. I would of liked to have tried this 3 years ago. Drink them up. Revisited this one day later. The nose has really opened up with blackberries, cherries and large oak. A bit spicier on the tongue than before also. If I were to rescore it today I would add 1 point to the nose and 1 to the tongue. (2340 views)

CellarTracker Wiki Articles (login to edit | view all articles)

Rodney Strong

Producer website


Tom Klein

Proprietor

A fourth generation California farmer, Tom earned a business degree from Stanford and spent the first part of his career as a management consultant at the San Francisco office of the prestigious global management firm McKinsey & Company. One project during this time was evaluating a small winery in the Russian River Valley called Rodney Strong Vineyards and, in a chance meeting, he was introduced to founder Rod Strong and winemaker Rick Sayre. Already developing an interest in wine, this encounter planted a seed that would grow into a lifelong passion.

Rick Sayre

Head Winemaker

Rick began his winemaking career at the age of 19 as an assistant winemaker and cellar master at Simi Winery in Sonoma County. He had the opportunity to train under the world-renowned winemaster André Tchelistcheff, who instilled in his young trainee a deep passion for the art of winemaking and a desire to not only master his craft, but continually push the boundaries of creativity. “André taught me that a winemaker must live with his wine,” Rick recalls, “from walking the vineyards to the careful craft of guiding the wine into bottle. Even the smallest details can have a lasting effect.”

When Rod Strong decided to take a step back from the demanding role of winemaker, he called upon Rick Sayre, who joined the team at Rodney Strong Vineyards in 1979. In more than three decades in the cellars, Rick has guided the wine collection to include world-class Reserve, Symmetry and Single-Vineyard releases, an outstanding line of Estate wines and best-in-class Sonoma County wines that continue to please vintage after vintage. His voracious appetite for new winemaking knowledge has taken him around the world, including trips to the wine regions of France, Australia, New Zealand and Spain

Cabernet Sauvignon

Cabernet Sauvignon is probably the most famous red wine grape variety on Earth. It is rivaled in this regard only by its Bordeaux stablemate Merlot, and its opposite number in Burgundy, Pinot Noir. From its origins in Bordeaux, Cabernet has successfully spread to almost every winegrowing country in the world. It is now the key grape variety in many first-rate New World wine regions, most notably Napa Valley, Coonawarra and Maipo Valley. Wherever they come from, Cabernet Sauvignon wines always seem to demonstrate a handful of common character traits: deep color, good tannin structure, moderate acidity and aromas of blackcurrant, tomato leaf, dark spices and cedarwood.

Used as frequently in blends as in varietal wines, Cabernet Sauvignon has a large number of common blending partners. Apart from the obvious Merlot and Cabernet Franc, the most prevalent of these are Malbec, Petit Verdot and Carmenere (the ingredients of a classic Bordeaux Blend), Shiraz (in Australia's favorite blend) and in Spain and South America, a Cabernet – Tempranillo blend is now commonplace. Even the bold Tannat-based wines of Madiran are now generally softened with Cabernet Sauvignon

USA

American wine has been produced since the 1500s, with the first widespread production beginning in New Mexico in 1628. Today, wine production is undertaken in all fifty states, with California producing 84% of all U.S. wine. The continent of North America is home to several native species of grape, including Vitis labrusca, Vitis riparia, Vitis rotundifolia, and Vitis vulpina, but the wine-making industry is based almost entirely on the cultivation of the European Vitis vinifera, which was introduced by European settlers. With more than 1,100,000 acres (4,500 km2) under vine, the United States is the fourth-largest wine producing country in the world, after Italy, Spain, and France.

California

2021 vintage: "Unlike almost all other areas of the state, the Russian River Valley had higher than normal crops in 2021, which has made for a wine of greater generosity and fruit forwardness than some of its stablemates." - Morgan Twain-Peterson

Sonoma County

Mendocino County

Alexander Valley

Alexander Valley Winegrowers Association | Wikipedia

 
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