Wine & Spirits

Winemaker Notes Lillian is not particularly Syrah-like. It doesn’t scream out the usual cocktail of blackberries, bacon fat, and lavender. It always feels a bit more about the people and the places than the varietal. The wines are lavish, but there is refined rocky quality in them that defies description. The 2013 vintage is no exception to this but it is a vintage that emphasizes the lace-like structure and perfume of the wine. Compared to recent vintages; the fruit is more intense than in 2011 and the tannins a bit more architectural. It has less of 2012’s salinity and has quite a bit more tension and energy. Critical Acclaim James Suckling This has an intense, smoky and meaty nose, together with aromas of charred herbs, blackberries, black cherries, spice box, earth, burnt orange and fresh leather. It’s full-bodied, rich and flavorful with firm, chewy tannins. Deliciously inky with a deep core of spiced, peppered black fruit. Intense and long. Drink or hold.

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Winemaker Notes The 2018 vintage was one of exceptional quality for Heitz Cellar. The cooler to moderate temperatures during the growing season allowed us to balance sugar and phenolic maturity in the fruit while maintaining natural acidity to help preserve the fresh characteristics of the vintage. The elegance and balanced structure of the 2018 vintage will make this an incredible wine to drink upon release and will continue to reward with cellar aging. Critical Acclaim James Suckling A pure, balanced and fresh Napa cabernet that is not just showing heady concentration and dark fruit. Here you get some violets, nimble flowers, redcurrants, graphite and fine spices. Some oranges, too. Fragrant and nuanced. Medium to full body with tight yet refined tannins. Rather linear, tense and elegant, but lacking neither power nor definition. Better to give it a few years to deliver more complexity.

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Winemaker Notes The 2019 “Cariad” bears a soulful mark of the land, with the polish and esteem of pristine fruit. A bevy of dark fruit flavors like blackberry, cherry, and black currant are woven together with generous notes of earth and spice. Commanding aromatics make way to reveal a wine loaded with the succulence of a tender cut of meat. Finely polished tannins melt across the palate as dark chocolate and herbal notes of mint build into the finish. Both classic and modern, the 2019 “Cariad” is a poignant example of the charm of this sophisticated vintage. Critical Acclaim Jeb Dunnuck One of the two perfect wines in the lineup, the 2019 Cariad is 62% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Cabernet Franc, and the rest Petit Verdot and Merlot, all from David Abreu’s Madrona Ranch Vineyard. Brought up in two-thirds new French oak, it has a regal, noble, full-bodied style that carries incredible tannins and balance, as well as off-the-charts purity in its floral, chocolate, lead pencil, and assorted red, blue, and black fruits. The tannins’ quality is truly something, and it’s rare to find a wine offering this level of purity, balance, and intensity at the same time. As with most 2019s, it already offers ample pleasure, yet smart money will give these 3-4 years, and it’s capable of evolving for 30 to 40 years.

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Picking commences at 4am, when we meet the team in the vineyard and ride with the bins behind the tractor as the pickers dump 5 gallon buckets into the Macro Bins, which we then sort, looking to discard any subpar clusters. Fruit comes into the winery, gets further sorted and then we make final determination on what percentage of whole-cluster we’ll use. Whole-clusters then go into the 1.5 ton open-top bin and the remaining fruit is de-stemmed and placed on top of the whole clusters. The wine is punched down twice a day, once first thing in the morning and once at night. Primary fermentation finished in around two weeks, at which point the wine was racked off the skins to 3 Stockinger 600L puncheons and 3 barriques without any sulfur added. The skins were pressed gently and the juice was then moved to barrel on its fine lees. Malolactic fermentation finished mid-late winter and the wines were lightly sulfured and put to bed until bottling in mid June. 12.6% abv.

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The grapes go directly to press with no sulfur added and from the press the juice is moved to tank to cold settle for 48 hours before going to barrel on its fine lees. The barrels are 5 year old french barriques, a combination of Francois Freres, Damy, and Rousseau, including one Rousseau Puncheon (500L), so they provide a neutral vessel that is not imparting flavor or tannin, but the micro-oxygenation that the wine needs to develop. The wine was gently stirred once a month during primary fermentation. Malolactic fermentation completed late winter and then was sulfured around 30ppm. The wine was racked out of barrel into tank to settle over night to be bottled the following day. 11.7% abv.

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The varying and distinctive landscape of the vineyard parcels meticulously selected for our Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon offer a wine of complexity and incredible breadth. This wine possesses a lifted acidity and well-integrated raw mountain tannins that close in a persistent finish, distinct in its ability to be enjoyed at a youthful stage.

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Critic tasting note: "Polished and soft for a young Howell Mountain wine, with plenty of ripe, sweet, juicy, fruit, licorice, earth and tannins. Structured to age, yet for this appellation, the wine will probably be approachable with only a few years of age. 92 Points" - 92/100, Jeff Leve, The Wine Cellar Insider

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Winemaker Notes This Chardonnay reflects AXR's commitment to quality wines and their trust in the palate of Winemaker/Partner, Jean Hoefliger. This Chardonnay provides a well-rounded and balanced display of the varietal with vibrancy, acid, minerality and fruit. Elegant and plush with aromas of toasted bread, blood orange, caramel, vanilla and white flowers. The palate has a round entrance evolving on vanilla, apricot jam, tangerine, yellow cherries, tiramisu and delicate spice. Critical Acclaim James Suckling Aromas of smoke, jasmine, peach and marmalade on toast. Almond-skin flavors, too. It’s full-bodied and creamy with crisp acidity. Complex layers of toasted nuts and ripe fruit. Elegant. Drink or hold. Wine Enthusiast An impressive white that is balanced between fruit, acidity and oak, this appellation wine offers a creamy, cohesive center that is both pretty and complex. Baking spice elements adorn layers of apple, apricot and Meyer lemon flavor that are rich yet fresh.

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93 points Wine Advocate Heidi Barrett’s 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon (600 cases fashioned from Calistoga fruit) includes 2% Cabernet Franc in the blend. Having put on weight since last year, it is a powerful, dry, rich, fleshy effort boasting loads of cassis fruit intermixed with sweet barrique smells. (RP) 

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95 points James Suckling: "Extremely aromatic, with intense flint, dried lemon and white peach. Crushed stone, too. Full-bodied with layered and creamy tannins that show super length and depth. Exciting to drink now but will age beautifully. (8/9/22)"94 points Jeb Dunnuck: "The 2019 Chardonnay VGW is fresh with white flowers, orange peel, and light flint. It has more tension on the palate, with fresh lime, delicate vanillin spice, and lasting floral notes on the back end. True to the vintage, it is a bit more subtle in its personality. although I think this will be an incredible wine as it matures over the next 10 or more years. Drink: 2024-2034. (Aug 2022)"

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TASTING NOTE: Even a cool vintage does little to nudge Roll Ranch Syrah away from a lavish expression of fruit. This 2019 bottling is all about it. Still, there’s lots of cool-climate intrigue and freshness to this big Syrah. Rich aromas of ripe red plum and black cherry dominate, but brighter beams of apricot poke through and there are pretty botanical qualities of jasmine tea, fenugreek and sage-y herbs. Lots of that is on the palate too, which gives luscious stone fruits before turning toward mouthwatering berry notes with spiciness and roasted herbs in the finish. The tannins are fine but plentiful—pair it with fatty meat dishes like carnitas, ribeye or cassoulet in the meantime. Not a meat-eater? The big fruit of this wine is a tasty counter to the bitter edge of crispy roasted vegetables. VINTAGE & WINEMAKING: 2019, like its sister vintage 2018, will go down as one of our favorite vintages. The cool Spring led to a later start for the vines, then onshore coastal weather dominated throughout veraison. We obtained perfectly healthy fruit throughout a long, staggered harvest that stretched into the end of October. This Syrah was harvested in the wee hours of the morning on September 16th. We loaded the tank with 71% whole-clusters, including a bit of Viognier. Then added our house-cultured yeast (derived from fruit picked while sampling) and gently pumped over the juice twice a day until the wine became dry. It was then aged in French oak barrels (21% new) for 20 months, with just one racking before bottling. Like almost all our reds, it was bottled unfiltered and unfined with minimal effective sulfur.

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