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Cabernet Sauvignon

When a wine is 100-percent Cabernet Sauvignon, as this one is, it may seem strange to speak about its blend—the “special selection” that gives the wine its name. But to me, the way we make this wine fulfills Napa Valley’s highest promise. By farming Cabernet Sauvignon grapes at vineyards in several valley locations, vinifying and aging the resulting small wine lots separately, then finally combining them in a way that raises each to a new level, we expand our potential to make the best wine we can from each vintage. This is a method that I have come to believe surpasses the possibilities of single-vineyard wines. The 2002 vintage gave us ample opportunity to prove this theory. The weather was very consistent, moderately cool and without harmful rains throughout the long growing season, until our rolling harvest—picking clusters in two separate passes—from mid-September through mid-October. All the Cabernet grapes, coming into the winery at their peak of ripeness, yielded deep color and sweet, supersaturated flavors immediately on pressing. But we extended the maceration time just a bit to allow each wine lot to give us everything it could. Then we selected the appropriate barrel to complement each wine—100-percent French oak barrels, about 80 percent of them new, from five different coopers. After 16 months, the candidate wines were ready to be considered for Special Selection. In this vintage, the combination that showed what I consider the best characteristics of the vintage for Cabernet—rich yet rounded, extracted yet fully evolved, immediately appealing yet full of promise for the future—came from our estate vineyard in Rutherford and two other valley floor vineyards where we have given very close attention to viticulture choices that boost fruit intensity, especially clonal selection and vine density, in recent years. The result is very rewarding to me: an authoritative wine with great staying power but a compelling sweetness of character. Chuck Wagner TASTING NOTES The rich, dark-ruby color of this wine offers a promise of the depth to come. Aromas and flavors of sweet, fully ripe black currants form the “big heart” of this wine, with notes of mocha/chocolate, black cherry, anise and spice interweaving seamlessly, first in the nose and then more explosively in the mouth. The texture is surprisingly velvety and supple for a wine of this extraction and density, attesting to the fine grain of the tannins and the balance of fruit and oak. The finish holds pure and true for long minutes, the impression of ripe fruit lingering to the end. Release date: February 2005

Napa Valley, United States

Caymus Vineyards

Napa Valley, United States