Nose
reveals a wealth of toasty blackberry fruit in the nose overlaid with a pronounced creamy, milk chocolate tone.
Palate
In the mouth, the wine is deep and concentrated, with intense black fruit and chocolate flavors that turn spicy in the long finish. Compactly structured, with firm, balanced tannins
Growing Conditions
In 2002, Napa Valley enjoyed a long, mild growing season of consistently warm days and cool nights, with just a few manageable heat spikes in late September and early October. With an expectation of healthy yields, many growers significantly thinned their crops and pruned shoots and leaves extensively to guarantee the vines put all their energy into ripening the remaining grape clusters, ensuring highly concentrated, complex fruit flavors. Cakebread Cellars further maximized grape quality by using advanced soil moisture management techniques to precisely calibrate the amount of water required by the vines at critical junctures throughout the season.
Winemaking
After the fruit was crushed, the juice and skins were moved to tank and allowed to cold soak for 72 hours before fermentation was initiated, a procedure designed to extract color and enhance flavor. Once fermentation got underway, the juice was drained from one tank to another, allowing the skins in the first tank to fall to the bottom, only to be thoroughly re-macerated once the juice was splashed back into the tank. Known as rack-and-return, this procedure helps diffuse pigment and tannins from the grape and also converts short-chain (harsh) tannins to long-chain (suppler) tannins. After an extended, four-week maceration, the wine was transferred to French oak barrels, 75% new, where it spent 18 months aging before being bottled in August 2004.
Aging
18 months in French oak, 75% new
