External search
Google (images)
Wine Advocate
Wine Spectator
Burghound
Wine-Searcher
Vintages
2021
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2008
2007
2006
2005
From this producer
Show all wines
All tasting notes
|
| Drinking Windows and Values |
| Community Tasting History |
| Community Tasting Notes (average 92 pts. and median of 93 pts. in 6 notes) - hiding notes with no text | | | Tasted by davidb18 on 3/15/2024 & rated 93 points: Starts with a rich mix of herbs and ripe fruit on the nose. Maybe a bit of mint and lemon. Continues with a solid acid base balanced well with not too sweet blueberries, herbs and nutmeg. A wine that seems to have many years to go. Just enough of being the antithesis of the over ripe CA cabs. Excellent. (108 views) | | | Tasted by davidb18 on 4/18/2021 & rated 93 points: Upon opening, a bright nose of fruit. It requires time in a decanter and even better day two. A fairly firm and noticeable structure of tannin and acid. As it opens, it shows not too ripe fruit of blueberries, some cranberries, herbs and a hint of cinnamon and cloves. A light touch of oak that balances the wine. A long finish - oak, red fruit, lime, cream, mint, cinnamon. This is early in the drinking window. Great wine. (1068 views) | | | Tasted by viniferatu on 11/11/2020: Wow! Sweet and bright fruit on the nose: creme de cassis, blackberry jam, sweet cherries. Violets, pencil shavings and dark green leaves back up the fruit. Lively and fresh on the palate, but very much a dense and full-bodied Cab, with firm tannins and dark fruit lingering. This is amazing stuff. (1153 views) | | | Tasted by KPB on 5/24/2020 & rated 93 points: I worried that this would be too young, but in fact the Clajeux is already drinking well.
The wine is dark in color, yet has a cool-climate personality: you can tell that yields were low and that the vines worked hard to come up with this very distinctive fruit. The nose is quite aromatic, showcasing the barest hint of menthol over black current compote, beeswax, sage. Flavorful and ripe, but not sweet: this wine is in a slightly tart, balanced style with lifted acidity that really frames the story, and has a firm but soft tannic spine, long finish.
When I bought this, I was hoping to avoid the kind of Napa cherry creme caramel one sometimes finds, and without question, this bottle is in my comfort zone. Plus, I bet it can improve for 20 years... a rare statement to be able to make about a Napa cabernet these days! (1233 views) |
| By Antonio Galloni
Vinous, Best New Releases from Sonoma and Beyond (May 2019) (5/1/2019)
(Arnot-roberts Cabernet Sauvignon Clajeux Vineyard Sonoma Red) Subscribe to see review text. | By Antonio Galloni
Vinous, Sonoma Preview: January 2019 New Releases (Jan 2019) (2/1/2019)
(Arnot-roberts Cabernet Sauvignon Clajeux Vineyard Sonoma Red) Subscribe to see review text. |
NOTE: Scores and reviews are the property of Vinous. (manage subscription channels) |
| Arnot-Roberts Producer Website
Jamie Kutch left a highly paid career as a stock trader in 2005 to move to California and pursue his dream of making wine. People thought he was crazy, until the first Pinot Noir he released scored 93 points in Wine Spectator. That shouldn't come as a surprise as Jamie has cut his teeth among some of the best producers in the Pinot Noir world. From his time spent working at the revered Kosta Browne in Sonoma to receiving sage advice from none other than Aubert de Villaine of Domaine de la Romanee Conti, Jamie has taken everything he has learned to produce some of the most compelling and terroir driven wines in California.
The Kutch wines are made as naturally as possible. After the grapes are harvested by hand, they are sorted meticulously and moved only by gravity, before being fermented in small open-top containers with hand and foot punch downs using indigenous yeasts. When fermented, the wine is gravity flowed into French Oak barrels, where they age sur lie (on the lees). The vineyard pursues a minimalist philosophy, trying to produce the purest expression of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from a particular place and time.
Since foundation 2001, Arnot-Roberts has been one of the most progressive and revolutionary producers on the California landscape. Initially their focus was just on making great Californian wines, but when the cool 2005 vintage gave them wines in a more austere, high acid style than the region was used to, Nathan and Duncan reacted completely differently to practically everyone else in California – they loved them and decided to pursue lower ripeness levels and higher acidity in all of their wines henceforth.
The intent is to produce wines that express the character of the sites in which the grapes are grown. No vineyards are owned. Fruit was sourced by arrangements with farmers from prime sites in Napa, the Sonoma Coast, the Santa Cruz Mountains, the Santa Rita Hills, Moon Mountain and the Sierra Foothills. The focus is on single vineyards, but some regional / appellation wines are also made if the grapes show strong association with their origins. The common thread is that most of the fruit is sourced from cooler vineyard sites.
Cabernet SauvignonCabernet 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 SauvignonUSAAmerican 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.California2021 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 CountyMendocino CountyChalk HillAppellation: Appellation America | Chalk Hill website | from Russian River Travel |
|
