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Wine Description
The Story
This gently sloping site is relatively cool, and is protected from the intensity of the late afternoon heat during the height of the growing season. The gravelly loam soils provide excellent drainage and wonderful fruit purity. Helms Vineyard Cabernet displays the classic profile of the Rutherford Bench: dark fruit, richly layered with a touch of spice and earth. The finely grained “dusty” tannins so prevalent in the appellation are integrated and harmonious, producing a wine of sophistication and depth.
Dana's commitment to converting our vineyards to dry-farming continues to show positive results. Dry farming encourages the roots to dig deep for water, and increases their ability to with stand heat events. As a result the vines produce wines that are more vibrant and representative of the terroir. The even temperatures over the summer and fall ripened the vineyard evenly, allowing the team to harvest all of Helms in only two days. They started with the clone 337 on October 9th. The SEE clone in front of the winery was picked the next day on October 10th. Both picks were fermented in upright oak tanks. The fruit was macerated for 35 days. After native yeast fermentation the wines were pressed directly to barrel, where native malolactic fermentation took place.
Wine Information
The vintage 2008
“2008 proved to be a tremendously challenging vintage, yet it ultimately produced some of the best wines of this decade. The vintage characteristics were defined primarily by the strongest La Niña spring for two decades,” Cameron Vawter, the winemaker of Dana Estate points out.
According to Vawter, the dry La Niña winter and an unusually warm March led to the earliest bud break on record for many of Dana Estate vineyard blocks.
“This seemed like a good thing until temperatures plummeted in late April and gave us the worst frost season in over thirty years. We used our frost fans for 32 nights during the spring. The frost, combined with some cool bloom temperatures, led to a very uneven veraison. This vintage was like no other vintage that I have experienced. A vintage is really made up of winter rains to fill the soil profile, the spring’s ability to dry the profile, summer’s ability to hold constant and then September’s warmth to either push ripening or allow it to happen slowly.”
Vawter comments also that the previous generation of Napa winemakers has compared the vintage 2008 to the spring of 1972, when the last really serious frost was experienced in the valley. However, apart from spring, he outlines that 2008 was actually a very dry, hot vintage.
“It had more heat spikes than any recent vintage. These heat spikes actually stunt a grape’s ability to ripen, and this is one reason the vintage boasts such purity and great acidity. The ripening was very rapid, preserving much of the freshness,” Vawter explains.