The Tb points given to this wine are the world’s most valid and most up-to-date evaluation of the quality of the wine. Tastingbook points are formed by the Tastingbook algorithm which takes into account the wine ratings of the world's best-known professional wine critics, wine ratings by thousands of tastingbook’s professionals and users, the generally recognised vintage quality and reputation of the vineyard and winery. Wine needs at least five professional ratings to get the Tb score. Tastingbook.com is the world's largest wine information service which is an unbiased, non-commercial and free for everyone.
Wine Description
The Story
There’s several cult cabernets in California, also some cult syrah wines (notably those from Sine-Qua-Non - I'll get back to those!), and a few of Pinot Noir. When it comes to whites, there’s still only one producer with some kind of cult stature – Marcassin. Helen Turley, the woman behind the winery, came to California in 1977 and started her career in the laboratory of Mondavi Winery. Later, she made wines at Chappellet on Pritchard Hill, at B R Cohn and then at Peter Michael Winery. She became a superstar winemaker of Sonoma and then Napa Valley with many highly acclaimed wineries in her consultant business. She was loved, she was feared, and her wines was awarded with top Parker scores.
In 1991, she planted a 3.45 hectare vineyard in the cool true Sonoma Coast, Marcassin Vineyard, and begun to make great chardonnays, and pinots. Today, the wines are extremely hard to get, sold only through the mailing list. You'll also find them on the second hand market, but there they are very expensive.
The chardonnays are all made in the same way, whole bunch pressed, very slowly fermented with the indigenous yeast in 100 percent new French oak barrels, and always with full malolactic fermentation. The wine style is somewhat extreme, especially when taste young. Helen Turley says the wines need some years of bottle age, sometimes even 10 years – and although I normally don’t think California whites are able to age very well, I do agree with here on these wines. Give them 5-7 years from vintage, and don’t serve them to cold, 12-14 degrees is great. Like the wines from Kistler, these wines benefit from decanting.
Vintage 2013
Napa Valley Harvest 2013 Report
A seamless year of steady weather and optimal ripening brings in above average yields and excellent quality fine wine grapes
10/22/2013 - St. Helena, CA: The Napa Valley Vintners (NVV) reports that the region’s winemakers expect to be done with the 2013 harvest within the next week. “Early, even and excellent” are three words being used to describe this year’s growing season and the Napa Valley wine grapes that have come from it, reflecting the consistent quality for which this world famous wine region is known.
A warm, dry spring brought early bud break, helped with canopy vigor and berry size and created ideal conditions for flowering and fruit set under sunny skies. With the exception of one heat spike in late June/early July, temperatures were consistently in the zone for optimal vine activity, resulting in notably healthy vines as fruit went through veraison and started ripening.
The August 1 start of harvest was the earliest in recent history. White wine grapes came in at a furious pace throughout that month, moving on to lighter reds by early September. Two brief mid-September rains had virtually no impact on the grapes. The vast majority of the more delicate skinned grapes had already been harvested and sunny weather with breezes followed the rains, allowing for the mostly Cabernet Sauvignon that remained to dry out almost immediately. The cooler, sunny weather throughout October allowed the final grapes still on the vine to linger longer, developing more phenolic and flavor maturities with sugar levels remaining steady.
As this harvest comes to a close, it is about two weeks earlier than other Napa Valley harvests in the last decade. Yields on the whole have been above average.
“In a nutshell, this vintage has given us the extraordinary gift of enabling us to pick exactly what we wanted, when we wanted, at perfect ripeness and ideal hang time,” noted Paul Colantuoni, winemaker at Rocca Family Vineyards.
Winemakers from around the valley agree the 2013 vintage holds exceptional promise and potential and exceeded expectations following on the heels of 2012 – another year that has been described as “nearly perfect.”
