Some wines are pure pleasure, while others set you to thinking. The 2002 Trilogy falls into the second category. It's not just a delicious wine; it seems to represent things beyond more. The Bordeaux heritage re-born in California. Napa Valley mountain fruit versus valley floor fruit. The modern idiom of enjoyable-young-yet-ageworthy. Wine for thought.
Trilogy is a Meritage wine--a blend of Bordeaux grape varieties--created by Flora Springs in 1984. Originally, the wine contained equal parts of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot, hence the name "Trilogy." The first six vintages maintained that blend. From 1990 through 1997, the wine's default blend was 40-40-20 Cab Sauvignon-Merlot-Cab Franc and, unlike previously, the component wines were blended just after fermentation, for greater harmony. From 1998 onward, the Trilogy blend has featured more Cabernet Sauvignon, about 55 percent, with 20 to 30 percent Merlot, and depending on the vintage, some Petit Verdot or Malbec. The 2002 is the first Trilogy to contain all five Bordeaux varieties.
That's all well and good, but what does the wine taste like? The 2002 Trilogy is full-bodied but only just, with firm tannin that builds in the mouth to a puckery intensity and yet does not overpower the blackberry, blueberry, black cherry and plum fruit character, which has a concentrated presence on the fore palate and re-emerges in the wine's finish. Notes of cedar and lead pencil recall Bordeaux, but the black-fruitiness is California. The wine is lean for a Napa wine, sleek like Bordeaux, but then there's that fruitiness. It is beautifully complex.
Flora Springs sources the grapes for Trilogy from both its valley floor vineyards and mountain vineyards. The soft texture and the intensity of fruitiness would seem to come from the benchland fruit; the freshness and vibrancy of the fruit character, the concentration, and the firm tannins suggest mountain fruit.
According to proprietor John Komes, the origin of Trilogy was the failure of early Flora Springs Cabernets to age, which set the winemaking team on a different path. "We wanted a wine that's drinkable young, plus ageworthy--not the big, huge, tannic wines that were in vogue at the time." That paradoxical character is the Holy Grail of modern winemaking, and with the 2002 Trilogy, Flora Springs has attained it. This wine is eminently enjoyable now, and yet it will develop and improve for 15-plus years, in my opinion.
At a vertical tasting of Trilogy about 18 months ago, a group of writers judged the 1997, from magnum, as their favorite Trilogy. It was beginning to show development in its coffee aroma, but still was alive with fruitiness and firm tannin. My own favorite was the 2002 barrel sample. Please don't remind me about that old saying regarding consistency and small minds&.
Outstanding: 93
