The 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon succeeds in the texture arena quite nicely, showing great entry depth of dark to black fruit, great acidity (which carries the myriad flavors through the mouth with lively pace), and beautiful finishing tannin that undergirds all the fruit and acidity that came before it. This wine will age beautifully for 7-10 years if stored well. Decanting the wine will help to open it up if you choose to drink in the first two years.

The 2013 vintage is showing, even its youth, to be one of the finest we have made so far. This wine shows wonderful richness of structure, flavor, and aroma while still maintaining a sense of finesse and elegance. On entry, one notices beautiful black cherry fruit, the dried herbs that are complexing agents in the nose and a dusty earthiness that throws the abundant fruit into even greater relief. The 2013 BDX Collection Merlot’s mid-palate is long and full, and the wine finishes with great length and litheness. This wine will age beautifully – with proper storage – for 7-10 years.

After the wine gets some air, aromas of semi-sweet chocolate, violet and lavender, black cherry, and plum come to the fore before giving way to an abundance of integrating oak. Chalky tannins and the wine’s youthful texture are obvious in the mid-palate; the red and dark fruit notes and the abundant tannic structure extend through an abundantly acid-defined finish. Unlike 2010 and 2011, this offering shows the warmth of the early growing season and the perfect ripening conditions at the time of harvest. Overall, the effect of the entry structure, mid-palate richness, and finishing acidity and length is quite stunning.

Home Ranch produces Cabernet of intense aromatics and idiosyncrasy; and the Ghielmetti mix of clones shows both elegance (Clone 30) and sauvage fruit (Clone 4). Petit Verdot adds wonderful exotic aromas, great color, tannin and acid; Merlot adds plushness to the mid-palate and nicely high-toned fruit in its black cherry essence; and Cabernet Franc adds racy acidity, red fruit, and a complexing herbal note.

From an immediately attractive and rich nose of dark plum, black cherry, cocoa and very subtle oak to an entry with opulence of fruit and concision of acidity and tannin, to a mid-palate and finish with both length and balance, this Cabernet is a stunner. Where the Lencioni Vineyard Cabernet offering was red this wine is very dark in fruit; where Lencioni was polished and relatively soft, this wine shows some hardness of tannin in its youth. Mouthfilling and grippy now, the 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon — Ghielmetti Estate Vineyard will mature beautifully, softening in tannin, over the next 15-20 years.

This Cabernet Sauvignon features the signature herbal, cassis, and spice aromas typical of the Cab-based wines we make from our home appellation. T Highlighted by a depth of dark, rich fruit that extends from the nose through the mid-palate, this wine finely balances the subtle organoleptic and structural elements gained from the finest French oak barrels to create a long, seamless, elegant wine.

This wine is organoleptically characterized by a balanced blend of red and dark fruits (red cherry, blackberry, cassis), their interplay very obvious in the mouth where the dark fruits add volume and the red a sense of pace and acidity. More importantly than the obvious flavors and aromas, this wine’s structure is wonderfully complete: a mouth-filling entry and mid-palate breadth circumscribed by polished tannins, and all underlain with gorgeous acidity that heighten the sense of fruit and freshness in the wine, especially through the mid-palate.

In past vintages (especially cooler ones such as 2010) Smith Ranch has tended to the austere side in its fruit presentation, the 2013 vintage – in keeping with the warmer growing year – is showing significantly more entry and mid-palate heft than any vintage since 2007. Different than that wine, however, is its acid-driven finish, which carries the dark and rich fruit to a very long conclusion. In the nose this wine shows intense aromatic notes of black fruit, fennel pollen, and pencil shavings. In the mouth, it maintains a consistency with the aromatics in its heft, opulence, and roundness. While not dryingly tannic, this wine has the structure to age for 10-15 years.

The 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon – Ghielmetti Estate Vineyard is our flagship Cabernet in the Single Vineyard Series. Displaying a characteristic sense (if not flavor and aroma) of oak, 100% French oak serves as a scaffolding for the flavors and aromas that are abundantly Cabernet Sauvignon. Lighter and with a more prominent showing of fruit and acidity than the 2013 vintage, this wine has great pace through the mid-palate, picking up moderate tannins on the long ride to the wine’s lengthy finish. Showing predominantly red fruit flavors such as red cherry, and red plum, the 2014 Ghielmetti Cabernet darkens slightly as it moves through the mouth.

Displaying the characteristic Home Ranch “perfume” and mouthfilling richness of our best vintages, this elegant, dark-fruited wine shows impeccable balance of tannin and acidity, fruit and wood even in its youth. With proper storage this wine should evolve beautifully over the next 10-15 years.

In the nose, the 2014 is richer and more black-fruited than the previous vintage, displaying notes of cassis, black plum, very subtle black olive and a bit of earthiness that serves to throw a spotlight on the wine’s significant fruit. Less red in the nose than 2013, the wine’s abundant acidity works wonderfully in concert with its firm, round tannin structure and also contributes some red fruit flavors on the finish. It is this offering’s great acid which contributes to the wine’s very lengthy finish and also serves as the single most important aspect of its ability to pair with a wide variety of foods. This wine should age gracefully for more than 10 years, and we believe this wine showcases a vision for Cabernet Sauvignon that is in keeping with the world-class potential of the Livermore Valley.

Lime zest, warm ginger, and the subtle perfume of white flowers dominate the nose while the silkiness of Semillon teams wonderfully with the vibrancy of the Sauvignon Blanc in the mouth to create a wine of great freshness, fruit, and length. The Semillon of 2016 was a little leaner than in 2015 so the final blend is a little racier than in 2015. This is a wine to drink while young to preserve the fruit that is the hallmark of this offering.

Each lot was wonderfully individualistic, differing in flavor, aroma, and texture. Together, they created a wine of finesse and elegance; mouth-filling richness underscored by precise, length-producing acidity.

The combination of Barbera, with its dried red fruit notes and racy acidity and Mourvèdre, known for its white pepper and dark berry flavors, creates a wonderfully complex nose with layers of fruit, pepper, and spice defining the wine. On entry, flavors of spiced orange rind, currant, and leather ride the back of Barbera’s keen acidity. That acid also carries the wine with great pace through the mid-palate to a long, lingering finish. While the flavors of both varieties can be distinguished, this wine is showing lovely integration of fruit now. This integration will continue over the next 2-4 years in bottle.

The Premier 2013 is convincingly a wine of its vintage. Ripe and rich, this wine is replete with the aromas of cocoa, dark fruit, espresso, and toasty oak. On entry, the richness of aromas is mirrored in texture, though leavening the opulence of fruit and wood is a focused beam of acidity that is most easily described as a note of red fruit threaded through the more obviously darker notes. The acidity freshens the wine and carries it with wonderful pace through the rich mid-palate where the wine begins to show substantial tannin and astringent structural elements. This wine should age gracefully for more than 15 years, and we believe it to showcase a vision for Cabernet Sauvignon that is in keeping with the world-class potential of the Livermore Valley.

Semillon, unlike its more famous regional cousin, Sauvignon Blanc, is more a wine of texture than of aroma or flavor. This vintage was harvested at slightly-higher sugar levels than 2015 and the aromas and flavors of white flowers, spiced pear, and honeyed peach are richer than the previous release. Characteristically, this variety shows nice viscosity in the mid-palate, and it is this quality that marries so well with Sauvignon Blanc’s searing acidity. 2016 shows lovely entry acidity (a quality that persists all through the wine) with a corresponding viscous weight in the mid-palate that elevates the fruit flavors. Boasting great aging potential in Australia, we are intrigued by this wine’s potential to gain more complexity with time.

Warm aromas of wild strawberry, red plum, and toasty oak give this wine a rich perfume. On entry, Taos Pueblo shows a richness of fruit flavor and pleasing viscosity. The wine picks up great pace, though, in the mid-palate, where fresh fruit and lovely acidity dominate the richness of fruit. On the finish, there is an elegance of structure with a hint of oak and tannin that undergird the wine’s full fruit but which does not diminish the sense of liveliness brought about its abundant acidity. This is a wine to drink while young to preserve the fruit that is the hallmark of this offering.

Like last year’s Vin Gris, 2016 is made from the beautiful block of Grenache that is grown in an east-west orientation at Ghielmetti Estate Vineyard. Both wines have similarly low alcohol levels, and an abundance of fresh, wild strawberry and white plum aromas and flavors. 2016 contains about Syrah (used to provide this wine its beautiful salmon color and bit of mid-palate heft), and one can discern that variety’s signature in a subtly meaty aromatic note and in the slightly rounder mid and tannic finish of this year’s offering. Slightly less acidic than last year, and slightly bigger in the mouth. Pairs beautifully with charcuterie and goat cheese and the rapidly warming Spring!