![]() ![]() Until now, this wine has been only available at the winery and a few select restaurants! Limited. This one’s punching beyond its weight.New Opus One Overture now available. Velvety tannins carry concentrated blackberry liqueur and juicy plum and cassis, with a kick of orange peel. The inviting nose is balanced between earth and fruit, spice and flowers, with hints of mocha, cedar, vanilla and savory herbs. And all of the above connections yield fruit from vineyards around the valley that rarely makes its way into wines at this price. New from The PlumpJack Collection of Wineries (which includes, besides PlumpJack, CADE and Odette Estates and whose owners include billionaire Gordon Getty and California Governor Gavin Newsom), Adaptation comes from winemaker Jeff Owens, whose very first release of Odette garnered 100 points from Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate. Photo: Courtesy of The PlumpJack Collection of Wineriesįlagship wines: PlumpJack Estate Cabernet Sauvignon, $160 Odette Estate Cabernet Sauvignon, $160 and CADE Estate Cabernet Sauvignon, $120. The 2018, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot, opens with cocoa, minerals, graphite and tobacco under red fruit, followed by more ripe red fruit and fine-grained tannins, with a juicy mid-palate that yields a big yum factor. They start over, with new blending sessions, to create another blend that’s the best of the next level. But, says winemaker Françoise Peschon (who collaborates with winemaker Nigel Kinsman), Laurea is not a repository for everything left on the cutting room floor. The 2018 Laurea is the first vintage of the “second” wine they created, to benefit from the great fruit from their great vineyard sources that didn’t make the cut in their rigorous blending sessions for Accendo. When the Araujo family sold their legendary Eisele Vineyard, they very deliberately shifted from the single-vineyard model to multi-vineyard blending for their new brand, Accendo Cellars. What better excuse (along with the lower price tags, of course) to grab a bottle on a whim to punch up taco Tuesday!įlagship Wine: Accendo Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon, $365, 100 points for the 2018 from Antonio Galloni at Vinous. Which brings me to one more advantage of “little sister” wines-many are crafted to be enjoyable at an earlier age than their older sibs. As Beth Novak Milliken, president and CEO of Spottswoode, quipped to me once, “Our members have to have something to drink while our Spottswoode Estate is coming around in their cellars.” Her solution: Lyndenhurst, a terrific Cabernet made from both the Spottswoode Estate Vineyard as well as acclaimed family-owned vineyards from other parts of Napa Valley. Pahlmeyer has had its Jayson, and Opus One its Overture. Of course, second wines aren’t a new invention. (Who you know matters in Napa Valley.) In all cases, though, the “decommissioned” wine benefits from the skill of star winemakers. Others are blended from great vineyards across the region, the fruit acquired through the vintner’s or acclaimed winemaker’s grower connections. In broad strokes, many of these so-called “second” wines are products of pedigreed estate vineyards, made from fruit that didn’t quite make the cut for the winery’s flagship bottling-a perfect win-win use of grapes that have enjoyed leaf-by-leaf farming alongside the barrels that did make the cut. But one consumer-friendly trend that has emerged from the era has the potential to improve our wine consumption at home for the foreseeable future: a small flurry of “little sister” wines-new labels created by exclusive (and elusive) brands at wallet-friendly prices that over-deliver with good fruit and great winemaking. Now, as restaurant dining is an option once again, and wine country is fully open to visitors (albeit mostly by appointment-another pandemic adjustment that only enhances the experience), some of those accommodations seem likely to stay in place. This Premium Ernest Hemingway-Inspired Rum Is Meant to Be Sipped Like Fine Whiskey The 50 Best Vineyards in the World, Ranked The Texas Food Scene Can’t Decide Whether It Wants a Michelin Guide ![]()
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