St. Helena wineries open their vaults
The vault at Freemark Abbey stores something more valuable than money — at least for wine lovers.
The temperature-controlled vault, which looks like an oversized cabinet, stores cabernet sauvignon that dates back to 1973, and it’s now the focal point of the St. Helena winery’s tasting room.
It’s not all wineries that set aside wine for the sole purpose of aging the vintage. And of those that do, it’s rare to find these “library wines” offered in the winery’s tasting room.
Tasting wines from a variety of past vintages offers “an incredible teaching moment for people,” according to Barry Dodds, Freemark Abbey wine educator. “There are people who have been drinking wine for a very long time and people who have been drinking wine for a very short time, but somewhere along the line people have heard that wine gets better with age.”
But they may not know why. Dodds said the integration of flavors over time is the magic an older vintage offers. “You know how spaghetti sauce is good the first day but it gets even better the second or third day?”
About 30 cases of cabs are tucked in the vault, with the oldest the 1973 Bosche Cabernet Sauvignon. Prices range from $50 to $500.
Freemark Abbey has a good track record with its older vintages, according to winemaker Ted Edwards. “It was the only winery to contribute two bottles to the (re-enactment) Paris Tasting of 1996, with both scoring in the top 10.” (Freemark Abbey, 3022 St. Helena Highway., 963-9694, tasting hours 10 to 5 p.m. daily.)
Burgess Cellars also sells library wines to the public and co-owner Steve Burgess said this offering is “extremely unique.”
“We began holding back 10 percent of our cabs since 1980,” to let them age, he said, “because no one else was aging their wine at the time and because it’s a way of honoring our heritage.”
Burgess said his father Tom was a corporate pilot for IBM and he flew throughout Europe in the 1960s, developing an appreciation for older wine.
The St. Helena winery offers vintages from 1979 to 2005, which range in price from $40 to $180. Burgess said he has hundreds of cases, “but the offer is not going to last forever because some vintages are down to just a few cases.”
Sharing the transformation of a cabernet is what it’s all about, Burgess said. “The best part is watching people’s faces when they try a wine that’s older than they are,” he said with a laugh. “The fruit, the wood and the aromas marry to create a bouquet that’s quite magical and we want to share that with others.” (Burgess Cellars, 1108 Deer Park Road, St. Helena, 963-4766, tastings by appointment only.)
Clos du Val also “caters to fans of older vintages,” according to Mary Ann Vangrin, director of public relations. “Anybody who comes to the tasting room can buy older vintages from 1987 to 2005 and Wine Club members can buy cabs dating back to 1973.” Prices range from $100 to $1,700 for 6-liter bottles.
Vangrin said co-founder Bernard Portet was meticulous about preserving older cabernets.
“A lot of wineries don’t really put that much aside and whatever they set aside is often for special parties or tastings or retrospectives,” she said. “I think it’s a very rare thing to offer the public older vintages.”