While it's true that some of California's finest red wines are made in very small quantities, and that the market forces of supply and demand require that these wines be priced expensively, many other wines seem to be subject to vanity pricing. "If it's that expensive, it must be great," the gullible wine buyer believes. And that's one of the reasons I enthusiastically recommend Mount Veeder Cabernet: in a buying culture of "expensive equals better," this wine has the good sense to be reasonably priced.
You might perhaps think that $40 for a bottle of Cabernet is not all that reasonable. But this is really good Cabernet! It's rich and ripe and velvety and generous. It's well-made, well-balanced for drinking now and for aging, and it's delicious.
When you taste the 2002 Mount Veeder Cab, one of the first things you might notice is its concentration. The wine has concentrated flavors of small black berries and concentrated tannins aplenty. Those tannins are ripe and round, however, and in the balance between fruit and tannin, the fruit does not shy away. In fact, this wine even smells concentrated.
This concentration is worthy of a wine that's made, on the average, from about 50 percent mountain-grown fruit. Those grapes grow in a challenging terroir, high on Mount Veeder on the western side of Napa Valley. There, above the level of the fog that cools much of Napa Valley's vineyards on most mornings, the grapes get plenty of morning sun, but the hillside shades them from the hotter afternoon sunshine. Fruit flavors stay fresh and focused rather than baked. Perhaps because of benchland and valley floor fruit in the blend, the wine has a special balance of character and yet rich ripeness. Certainly the wine's fairly soft acidity is part of this equation, enabling it to be firmly, characterfully tannic and yet not at all astringent.
I greatly admire (and enjoy!) Mount Veeder's other 2002 red, the Reserve, which is made entirely from mountain fruit. It is a finer wine than this Cabernet. But the mouth-coating tannins of that wine render it more austere when it is young. Winemaker Janet Myers told me that some people consider that wine to be effusive even when it is young. Personally, I couldn't relate to that word until I tasted this Cabernet. It is effusively rich and yet authentically solid.
Hard cheeses and rare beef accompany this wine as nicely as they do other serious Cabernets. But this wine doesn't need those foods to taste good. It's lovely with sausages and peppers, grilled tuna or meatloaf. Or even with just the aeration afforded by a large Bordeaux glass, and a handful of almonds.
90 Points
