Vertical Challenge

Last night, we were blessed to have new friends bring with them a wide vertical of wine for a steak dinner. We ahared bottles of wine from the same winery and in fact with grapes from the same vineyard from the 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015 vintages.

Freemark Abbey is one of the legendary wineries in Napa Valley. Located in the northern part of St Helena, their 1969 Cabernet Sauvignon was one of the wines tasted in the 1976 Judgment of Paris. And, since the late 1980s, they have grown some of their finest grapes at Sycamore Vineyard, Sycamore Vineyard is located in Rutherford, not too far to the south of the winery, on a gravelly plot with the grapes planted to get eastern sun exposure. Because this gets the grapes morning sun exposure rather than that of the often brutally hot Napa afternoons, the wines produced here tend to be more balanced than some other wines of the area, but not as big.

We started out by tasting the wines side-by-side without the benefit of food. The winner was the 2005 vintage although I preferred the 2010. With the NY Strip served with dinner, the 2010 was the clear winner.

Interestingly, all the wines were from vintages generally viewed as strong ones in Napa Valley. Of particular note and pehaps an influence on the wine, the growing season in 2005 was cooler than many others especially more recent ones. While July and Auguse were slightly warmer than average, May and June as well as September were several degrees cooler than average. I expect that this is the reason that the 2005 was the softest of all the wines with the remaining tannic structure quite soft and rounded while the 2010 had easily the densest tannins of the bunch.

In all of the wines with the exception of the 2000 which had nearly all of its primary aromas and flavors, anise, black licorice, and dark berry were prominent. The 2000 was somewhat savory and did quite well with mushrooms in gravy. And, curiously, the 2000 came to life with cashews.

The still weighty tannins in the 2010 did an excellent job of calming the marbling and saltiness naturally present in the steak. And, even for the drinkers who liked the 2005 better as a sipping wine, when paired with the steak, the 2010 was judged better although one drinker preferred the youthfulness of the 2015.

If you have the opportunity, doing this is a wonderfully remarkable experience. It doesn't have to be an expensive wine and it doesn't have to be wines with 5-year splits between them. Find a store brand wine at Costco, for example (my choice would be the Rioja Reserva at $7.99) and collect bottles from 4 consecutive vintages. Have a dinner that would go with a Rioja Reserva and try the same experiemnt. And, do it with enough people that you will have some differences of opinion and make sure that the people are of the ilk that they will discuss.

Enjoy!