The Premier Cabernet Sauvignon - 2012
Courtesy of The Steven Kent Winery, Livermore Valley
Note: Continental US Wine Shipping Only
Harvest Notes
2012 put to end a string of three vintages of below-average temperatures in the Livermore Valley. The harvest months of September - November saw mild temperatures, and outside of about .4" of rain spread out over the middle two weeks of October, fruit came in under near-perfect conditions. Our last day of harvest was November 8th, two days ahead of
the previous year.
Winemaker Notes
The Premier Cabernet Sauvignon 2012 began a string of three vintages of nearly unrivaled quality in my winemaking experience in the Livermore Valley. This wine is a blend of three separate lots of wine and is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon. Many times throughout the elevage of our wines, I will blind taste through more than 100 barrels of Cabernet to choose the few barrels that, together show the greatest and purest expression of Cabernet Sauvignon from our vineyards in that season. Each lot of wine is fermented on its own in 1.7-ton open-top vessels and may go through
a period of extended maceration for up to 30 days past dryness. Each lot is inoculated with the strain or strains of yeast that bring out the fruit's purity. This vintage of The Premier was aged for 22 months in 100% new French oak.
Tasting Notes Displaying the characteristic balance between flavor, aroma, and
structure that is a hallmark of the Steven Kent Winery, this wine is replete with black fruit aromas, focused flavors of cassis, blackberry, and graphite, and oak. From a relatively warm year, this Cabernet displays appropriate and welcoming roundness that was replaced by austerity in the cool previous vintage. Tight in its youth, it will blossom organoleptically and structurally over the next several years, and with proper storage should evolve beautifully for 10-15 years. This wine showcases a vision for Cabernet Sauvignon that is in keeping with the world-class potential of the Ghielmetti Estate Vineyard and the Livermore Valley and is more concerned with the wine's harmony and beauty than it is in pure brute power.
Vineyard Source(s) 67% Ghielmetti Estate Vineyard, Block 5B - eastern foothills Livermore Valley; 25% Home Ranch Vineyard, mid-Livermore Valley; and 8% Smith
Ranch Vineyard, western Livermore Valley. The Ghielmetti Estate
Vineyard, Block 5B is home to the See clone of Cabernet while the Home Ranch Vineyard is planted to the original Concannon clone. Smith Ranch is planted to clone 8 of Cabernet on 101-14 rootstock.
Harvest Data
Oct 27 - Nov 6, 2012 | pH 3.65 | TA 0.62 | Alcohol 14.2%
Fermentation Cold soaked for 5-7 days, individual fermenters inoculated with D254
and D-21 yeast strains. Extended maceration of 14 days followed primary
fermentation.
Cooperage Aged for 22 months in 100% new French oak barrels. Primary cooperages were Le Grand, Taransaud, and François Frères.
Cases Produced 561 six-packs
Release Date: May 9, 2015