Tasting Notes

Release Date: Fall 2013

Looking back, 2009 was a classic year, especially for this wine. The triad of a late September harvest, good winter rains and an exceptionally long growing season was the reason. Friends and visitors always ask about the effects of this weather or that. Truth be told, the uneventful is eventful to us winegrowers. Not too hot, not too cold, not too much rain and not too little. The "middle path" is where Buddhists and winemakers meet to make great wine.

This wine is an extravagant combination of our thirty plus year old mountain vineyard and a naturally generous vintage. Just coming together after two full years in the bottle, its deep, layered, racy flavors of blackberry, herb and cassis are, as always, presented with great balance and pedigree. This bottling is a blend of eighty-eight percent Cabernet Sauvignon, six percent Merlot, four percent Cabernet Franc and two percent Petit Verdot.

Give this wine some time, at least five to develop, you will definitely be rewarded. Aging potential is 20-40 years.

Production

1,386

Tech Notes

Yield: 1.8 tons per acre Harvest: September 24th-October 7th Numbers @ Harvest: 23.0 Brix, 3.47 pH, 6.8 grams acidity Cepage: 88% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc & 2% Petit Verdot Barrel Regimen: French 50%; American 50%--3/4 new, aged 22 months in barrel Bottling: August 2011; no fining or filtration Alcohol: 14.2%

Reviews

94 points Antonio Galloni presents Vinous - July 2013

Dark red fruit, menthol, spices, licorice and plums meld together in the 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon. Rich, layered and textured, the Cabernet Sauvignon has plenty of vintage 2009 juiciness, but firm, well-integrated tannins provide a gorgeous backbone of structure. The style is bold, juicy and direct, much of that shaped by a period of warmth at the end of the growing season. This is an unusually flashy wine from Mount Eden, but it works. Over the last few years in particular, the Cabernet Sauvignon has been the hidden gem in the Mount Eden lineup.

93 points Steve Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar - November/December 2013

(88% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot): Deep ruby. Powerful, smoke-accented cherry and blackcurrant aromas are energized by zesty minerals, picking up pipe tobacco, cedar and dried rose nuances with air. Fleshy and broad but focused too, offering intense dark berry flavors and a suggestion of bitter chocolate. A sweet vanilla quality rounds out the impressively persistent finish, which shows superb clarity and solid but well-knit tannins.

91 points Wine & Spirits Magazine - October 2013

A plump, black-fruited vintage of Mount Eden, this wine is showing its oak influence in toast and smoky elements, mingling with scents of tobacco, cedar and eucalyptus. There’s a sense of small berried grapes providing a lot of dark fruit skin character, needing ten year or more in the cellar to evolve.

88 points Wine Spectator - Web Only 2013

Young and Bordeaux-like in structure, with firm, gripping tannins, a mix of dried berry, game meat, tobacco and cedar and a tight, structured finish. A wine with an excellent record for aging. Best from 2015 through 2025.