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Wine Description
The Story
The scarecrow story begins in a patch of earth with a fabled past. The J.J. Cohn Estate, where Scarecrow grapes are born, borders what was once the legendary vineyard of Inglenook winemaker Gustave Niebaum, whose plantings blanketed more than 1,000 acres of the Napa Valley at the close of the 19th century.
John Daniel Jr. took the helm at Inglenook in 1939, determined to restore the label to pre-Prohibition standing and produce world-class Bordeaux-style wines. In 1945, Daniel convinced his neighbor, J.J. Cohn, to plant eighty acres of Cabernet vines on the 180-acre parcel Cohn had purchased a few years prior. The property served as a summer retreat for Cohn’s wife and their family. He had no ambitions to become a winemaker himself, but Daniel promised to buy his grapes, so Cohn planted vines. The rest, as they say, is history.
J.J. Cohn fruit figured prominently in Inglenook’s superlative Cabernet Sauvignons of the post-war era, and has more recently gone into wines of such renown as Opus One, Niebaum-Coppola, Duckhorn, Insignia and Etude.
J.J. Cohn Estate grapes are highly sought-after in part because Cohn bucked the trend, begun the mid-1960s, of replacing vines planted on St. George rootstock with the supposedly su y superior AxR#I hybrid. Over time, vines grafted onto this new stock proved highly vulnerable to phylloxera. But by then, virtually all of the old St. George vines in Napa had been destroyed. Only the original 1945 J.J. Cohn vines survived. These highly prized “Old Men” continue to produce uncommonly rich fruit—the hallmark of Scarecrow wine.
Wine Information
The 2009 growing season began after a winter of close to normal rainfall, and with a welcome absence of the memorable spring frosts of 2008. The favorable conditions in the spring produced even, uniform vine growth, leading to a successful outcome to the critical bloom period. In many of the blocks at the JJ Cohn Estate, the crop load would have been excessive, and a focus was to bring the crop down to a level where ideal ripeness could be achieved. This process involved multiple passes through the vineyard to remove shoots and individual clusters, with an eye towards uniformity. The summer produced almost ideal growing conditions, with enough heat to develop the crop to maturity, but without any damaging temperature spikes. The result was perfectly and uniformly ripe fruit that was harvested at its absolute peak, just ahead of the mid-October rains.
t a s t i n g n o t e s
Winemaker Celia Welch writes of the 2009
Scarecrow:
“Open, forward and intensely perfumed aromas of cassis, boysenberry and warm raspberries dominate the nose of this ripe, fruit-driven Cabernet, with undercurrents of vanilla, sweet earth and anisette. Texturally the wine opens with soft, delicate fresh flavors of sweet crushed dark cherries, evolving into darker notes of cocoa, vanilla, and a hint of warm toasty oak.
Velvety, fully complexed tannins coat the mouthfeel as though the wine is draped in heavy satin. The wine continues to evolve and add layers and dimensions of flavor as it spends time in the glass, and a description of the wine can only provide a snapshot of that evolution.
This 100% Cabernet Sauvignon was produced entirely from grapes grown on the J. J. Cohn
Estate in Rutherford, Napa Valley. Harvested between September 28 and October 12, 2009, the wine was fermented in small lots, then judiciously blended to create this complex offering. The wine was aged in 90% new French oak barrels for approximately 21 months prior to bottling without fining or filtr ation.”
