2016 Sparkman Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon Holler

Full Pull

• By Paul Zitarelli
  Full Pull Future Top 100?, 4/17/2019

  (Sparkman Cellars Holler Cabernet Sauvignon) Hello friends. I recently learned that the May 31 issue of Wine Spectator will contain the following review for Sparkman’s 2016 vintage of their Holler Cabernet Sauvignon: Wine Spectator (Tim Fish): “Dense and focused, with a tangy edge to the dark plum and currant flavors, hinting at stony mineral and dusky spice flavors as the finish persists impressively against fine tannins. Best from 2018 through 2023. 93pts.” We had the ’16 Holler pegged for a late-spring/early-summer offer, but with that review, and the wine’s potential as a Spectator Top 100 darling, we decided not to take any chances, and went ahead and purchased every last bottle remaining in western Washington. This is the third vintage of Holler we’ve been able to source. We offered the inaugural 2012, then missed out on both the 2013 and 2014, which became devilishly difficult to source after the ’13 landed the #21 slot in Spectator’s 2016 Top 100. We snagged a small parcel of the 2015 vintage back in autumn 2017, and that brings us to today. A few years ago, when our list members began asking for more predictions about which northwest wines would wind up on Spectator’s list, I did what any applied-math-major-turned-wine-retailer would do: a proper statistical analysis. Since then, we’ve continued to update our database of Spectator Top 100 wines from the PacNW; it now covers 99 wines from 12 years. Nerdy? Sure. But also fun, and better yet, fairly predictive! Spectator makes their Top 100 criteria very clear: score, price, and production (there is also a fourth, qualitative, fudge factor, but we’ll ignore that one in favor of the quant factors). Looking at other 93pt northwest wines that have made the list over the years, we have a group of eighteen wines. Their prices range from $24-$65, and their production from 750-14140cs. Holler is a << 93pt | $32 | 2441cs >> wine, which has higher production than the 2007 Tamarack Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon << 93pt | $32 | 1064cs >> (2011 Top 100) and lower price than the 2013 Matthews Claret << 93pt | $40 | 2129cs >> (2016 Top 100). Normally I’d give this about 80/20 odds to make the list. The only mitigating factor is that another vintage of Holler (that 2013) made the 2016 list, and that’s only three years ago. Spectator does seem to prefer sharing the wealth a bit. We shall see, but one thing I can say for sure: whatever the result, this wine will be long sold out by the time we know. Now then, the wine itself. What has always made Holler such a killer value is that it comes predominantly from the same vineyard sources that go into Sparky’s high-end bottlings. Some examples: Sparkman’s Evermore Old Vines Cab ($100) contains fruit from Dionysus, Klipsun, Boushey, and Upland; all four of those vineyards are in Holler. Kingpin Cab ($65) is Klipsun and Olsen; both are in Holler. Rainmaker Cab ($65) is Olsen and Kiona; both in Holler. The winemaking looks similar to the pricey bottles too: 18 months in oak, 37% new. This clocks in at 14.5% listed alc and begins with a wonderful Cabernet nose, featuring a core of blackberry and black plum fruit paired to complexities of barrel (high-cacao chocolate), exotic spice (star anise), and earth (smoky peat moss) alike. A delicious truffle of a wine in the mouth, this is charming texturally, offering polished, fine-grained tannins supporting succulent, cocoa-dusted black fruit. In five short vintages, Holler has become one of the finest values in Washington Cabernet. Slip it into a blind tasting of Washington heavy hitters (or better yet, Napa), and see how beautifully it performs.