ST. HELENA, CA. — Spottswoode winemaker Jennifer Williams posed an interesting question during my visit earlier this week. We were discussing the 40-acre estate vineyard, which has produced many of the Napa Valley’s most memorable Cabernet Sauvignons over the past quarter-century, including a few vintages at neighboring Duckhorn Vineyards before the Novak family made the leap from grape growers to full-blown vignerons in the early 1980s.
They did so at the urging of Dan Duckhorn and others, who convinced the family matriarch, Mary Novak, that her beautiful vineyard at the foot of Spring Mountain in St. Helena was indeed something special.
The vineyard has proven worthy of that assessment, for the high-class Spottswoode Cabernets have been remarkably consistent through a raft of different winemakers, including the brilliant Tony Soter, whose deft hand ushered in the age of Spottswoode Cabs as a Napa icon.
Soter was followed by Pam Starr, then there was Rosemary Cakebread and now Jennifer Williams. And I’ve probably missed one or two others from years past. So Williams asked me what I thought the signature of the vineyard — the one thing that had been consistent throughout the winemaking and viticultural changes — might be.
Not prepared for the question, I mumbled something about texture, and the conversation moved on. But I’ve had time to think it over and am inclined to stick with my original instinct. I don’t have my old tasting notes from the early Spottswoode years, but I do remember noting that a Spottswoode Cab was always supple and beguiling, yet with an underlying depth and power that indicated a promising evolution and long life.
These were ultra-smooth Cabernets, with extraordinary finesse and elegance. Little has changed since that first vintage in 1982. The impressive 2003 Spottswoode Cabernet Sauvignon, which I will review next week, is a work of art. Spottswoode was, and remains to this day, the Pichon-Lalande of the Napa Valley.
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