Opened last night with dinnner a bottle of 1991 Clos Du Val Napa Valley Cabernet. Ecellent cork with a fair amount of tartrate crystals. The wine was still a deep reddish purple with a slight brickish cast. Nose of plums and cedar. Very smooth on the palate, medium bodied with bright red fruits, plums, current, a bit of peach, leather and cedar. Fully mature with resolved tannins and a firm acidity. The wine seems to be holding nicely and will be ok for at least another few years. "B+"
Clos Du Val is one of my favorite Cal Cabs. And I am assuming this is a regular bottling not a reserve...that is so great that its drinking well and not in total decline yet.
Their wine is atypical of Cal Cab in the sense that it is not Parkerized to reflect the Cal Fruit bomb experience.
A true fav of mine. I have non of this in my cellar but love their wine and winery...I buy this at restaurants when eating out..
Thanks for these notes, Bill. On another forum, the topic of "classic" California Cabernets came up and, along with Montelena, Dunn, Ridge and a handful of others I offered Clos du Val as an example. The wines aren't showy or big, but age well and usually develop into something tasty. I'll have to go visit them again when next in Napa.
This was the regular bottling and while certainly it's showing mature notes it's far from being over the hill. Bernard Portet brought a French ssensibility to the Napa Valley mixing the best of both worlds. His wines tend to acentuate the fruit while balancing the acidity giving the wines an affinity for food and ageing. Certainly one of my personal favorites from Napa.
If you do stop at Clos du Val you might want to stop at Cliff Lede Vineyards. Lede is on Yountville Cross about 1/4 mile off Silverado Trail (the old S. Anderson Winery) in the Stags Leap District. They're making a pretty good SB and some impressive Cabernet blends under the Cliff Lede label. They have spent a ton on replanting and building a new facility and I expect to see Lede in that eleite group you mentioned in a few years.
I still have a few bottles of the 1974 Clos Du Val. It has been mature a long time, but still is holding. There was a lot of hype about Clos Du Val back in the 1970s, because the winemaker was a then young man from France with a father associated with making of Lafite Rothschild. I am not sure that was all that good an association back then, since Lafite often did not make as good wine as it now does. The 1974 was a big wine with much extract and tannin, but much more civilized than some of the extremely high alcohol and tannic wines then being made by others. It had a much better balance than many monsters of the 70s.
Balance certainly describes well those Clos du Val wines from the '70s. I never had the '74, but did quite enjoy the '77 and '78 Reserve bottlings. And let's not forget the '72, which was one of the wines included in the Judgment of Paris in '76. Although it didn't fare that well in '76, it came out on top in Steven Spurrier's 10th anniversary tasting in '86 (but again fell in the rankings in the 30th anniversary tasting).
I still have one bottle each of the 1976 regular and the 1978 reserve. It has been so many years since I tasted either, that I could only guess at their present condition. I often save the last bottle of a wine that might keep for many years to see what happens with much more age.
I am not buying top wines to long age anymore because I have many, because of my age, and because of the high price. My most recent interest is in eau de vie, which does not require age. It is easy to find Kirsch, Framboise and Poire Williams in the US. However some are very difficult to find here and some do not seem to be available from anyone. There are a few US micro distillers now making decent examples of the above mentioned ones as well as Fraise and Douglas Fir(France has long made Sapin eau de vie from an evergreen tree buds). With much effort I finally located sources of some in England and Spain. I have managed to get decent examples of Houx(from holly berries), Eglantine(Gratte-Cul), Rene Claude, Prunelle Sauvage, Coing, Myrtille,Sureau etc made in France and rowanberry from Austria. Oddly enough, I still have not located Peche, although several make it. Then there are some I do not want to try. One French distiller makes all sorts of unusual spirits, such as asparagus eau de vie, which I can do without. He also makes black truffle eau de vie which is quite expensive.
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