Wine Article
2019 Caterwaul Cabernet Sauvignon Cemetery Vineyard
Last edited on 8/31/2021 by The Juice is Loose
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From the winery at release:
As much as we loved the 2018, this is a big step up from that first bottling. Vine maturity and vintage conditions get most of the credit for this improvement. This is a challenging site so every year should see better and better root development as the plants work their way down through mostly old creek bed cobble. The vineyard site can also see extreme heat being in the heart of St Helena but the cool-ish 2019 vintage saw very little dehydration anywhere in the valley. The high temperatures around Labor Day in 2017 forced us to declassify everything from Cemetery that year due to abbreviated hang time and lack of true development. In 2019, we were able to hang the fruit out as long as we wanted easily getting through the one heat event in September and making picking decisions based on flavor and tannin maturity. The resulting lots gave us plenty to choose from when we sat to finalize this blend. The 2019 is saturated black/purple all the way to the rim. Even the bubbles in the wine when you pour it are purple. The entire expression of the wine is very dark: chocolate, blackberries, black currants, cassis, black olive, cocoa and scorched earth run from the front of the wine to the back. Like a lot of wines on this soil type, there’s a nice balancing minerality, almost as if you can taste the rock in the vineyard. The tannins are abundant but perfectly ripe and help to buffer the dense, thick fruit profile. With all the best wines we make, there is a lot of everything present here but all in equal, balancing proportion.
As much as we loved the 2018, this is a big step up from that first bottling. Vine maturity and vintage conditions get most of the credit for this improvement. This is a challenging site so every year should see better and better root development as the plants work their way down through mostly old creek bed cobble. The vineyard site can also see extreme heat being in the heart of St Helena but the cool-ish 2019 vintage saw very little dehydration anywhere in the valley. The high temperatures around Labor Day in 2017 forced us to declassify everything from Cemetery that year due to abbreviated hang time and lack of true development. In 2019, we were able to hang the fruit out as long as we wanted easily getting through the one heat event in September and making picking decisions based on flavor and tannin maturity. The resulting lots gave us plenty to choose from when we sat to finalize this blend. The 2019 is saturated black/purple all the way to the rim. Even the bubbles in the wine when you pour it are purple. The entire expression of the wine is very dark: chocolate, blackberries, black currants, cassis, black olive, cocoa and scorched earth run from the front of the wine to the back. Like a lot of wines on this soil type, there’s a nice balancing minerality, almost as if you can taste the rock in the vineyard. The tannins are abundant but perfectly ripe and help to buffer the dense, thick fruit profile. With all the best wines we make, there is a lot of everything present here but all in equal, balancing proportion.