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Normally, each month I write about a particular grape or wine region and we
review wines that fall into those categories. This month however, we are
going to take a bit of a detour and actually talk about some of the Elite
Wineries and the Super California Cabernet Sauvignons and Meritages that
they produce. These Napa Valley Icons represent the best of the best and
consistently prove it in the market place. For some of us, with more modest
means, wines like these are once in a lifetime splurges. A wine that creates
an experience that will lead to a lifetime of memories. These are wines you
will talk about again and again with friends and family.
The great folks at these wineries themselves provided most of the
information contained on this page, the Wine & Food Pairing page and the
Monthly Recipes page. The fact that they responded to my request for
information shows you just how much they care about the people that drink
their wines. I think it is interesting to note all the similarities between the
wineries, and there are quite a few of them. Most of them bought the land in
the 70’s when Napa Valley hadn’t garnered quite the reputation it has today
and was certainly much less expensive per acre. They all have vineyards or
source vineyards that are located in what are considered to be the best
appellations for growing Cabernet Sauvignon grapes in California.
Interestingly enough, they seem to all focus on the same grape varietals
exclusively. All of them have won numerous accolades from their peers in
the wine industry and they all have customers that are fiercely loyal to
them. There is also a philosophy that they all seem to share and that is that
they regard their wine as an experience rather than a product you drink
Cakebread Cellars
You could say that Cakebread Cellars is a family affair. In this family, it is
quite obvious to me that the apple does not fall too far from the tree. From
what I can tell, everyone born into Jack and Dolores Cakebread’s family
apparently has a hand in their winery business. Keeping Cakebread Cellars
a family tradition could be one of the main reasons for their amazing success
in the Napa Wine lore.
For starters there is Jack who visited the Napa Valley area over thirty
years ago to do a photo shoot. While he was there, he had causally
mentioned to some family friends that owned a ranch in the Rutherford
district of Napa Valley that he would like to someday own a vineyard. Upon
returning home from his visit, these same friends contacted him about
buying their property. The rest as they say is history.
Their first vintage of wines was in 1973 and they produced 157 cases of
Chardonnay. Something to this day that the Cakebread reputation has been
built upon, their award-winning Chardonnay wines. Of course you can’t live
in Napa Valley and not produce the king of all red wines and soon it was that
Cakebread was making wonderful and long-aging Cabernet Sauvignon
wines.
Then there is Jack’s wife, Dolores, the hostess with the mostess. Okay, I
made that word up, but you get the connotation. In the beginning, it was
Dolores that made all of the winery visitors welcome with wonderfully
prepared organic food that was paired with the family’s wines. In fact, to
this day, Dolores is still championing and promoting the art of healthy eating
and healthy lifestyle. She puts together a four-day seminar every year that
gathers together some of the top chefs in the country and the winemaker,
who work together to discuss, wine, food and a healthy lifestyle. This annual
event is called the “American Harvest Workshop”. Dolores is assisted in
this workshop by Karen Cakebread.
It’s wonderful to have a wine that sells itself every year by reputation alone
and the person responsible for getting the word out about the goings on at
the winery would be Dennis Cakebead. Are you seeing a pattern here?
Dennis is the director of sales for Cakebread Cellars and he operates on the
philosophy that ‘wine is fun and should be enjoyed with others while doing
fun and memorable things’. I guess this philosophy has caught on, have you
seen how hard it is to acquire one of their wines in the Dallas market? If
you don’t pounce on a bottle or two when they are first released, you’ll miss
out completely!
Now if you are going to own a winery, you are going to need someone to
make the wines. I know that this is about to come as a shock to most of you
reading this, but yep, you guessed it, another Cakebread is in charge of
making the wines at the Cellar. That would be Bruce Cakebread. Bruce
states that the biggest changes that have occurred over the years are the
technological advances in both their winery and the industry as a whole.
Cakebread now has a state-of-the-art winery with all of the latest equipment
including a neutron-probe irrigation system for watering the vineyards in a
controlled environment. I’m not sure what a neutron-probe irrigation
system is, but from the sound of it, I sure wouldn’t want to make Bruce
mad! I guess I better go out and buy some more Cakebread wines!
My first experience with a Cakebread Cabernet Sauvignon came just this
year while I was attending Savor Dallas back in February. There were
literally over a hundred wines represented at this Grand Tasting, but I can
tell you with a hundred percent certainty that it was the Cakebread
Cabernet that stood out above all the rest. It certainly made quite a
believer out of me and apparently it made quite an impression on everyone
else there because they ran out of all of their wines in under two hours. A
lot of Napa Cabs that are along the same quality lines as Cakebread make
wines that are too austere to be enjoyed right away. They need time for
their tannins to soften to become enjoyable to drink. However, Cakebread’
s Cabernet is remarkable right out of the gate and if you wanted to, you
could indeed age it for an additional five to seven years. This is a quality
that most of us could certainly appreciate!
This month we will be tasting their 2002 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon
which is a blend of 87% Cabernet Sauvignon, 11% Merlot and 2%
Cabernet Franc. These are your typical Left Bank Bordeaux Claret
varietals. They sourced the grapes for this wine from a combination of
grapevines located in the cool Carneros district in the south, the warm
Calistoga region at the northern end of the valley and the lion’s share of
grapes come from their own neck of the woods in the mid-valley Rutherford
appellation. Blending these grapes grown in different areas with different
growing conditions allows Cakebread to make a more complex Cabernet
Sauvignon. The grapes were harvested from September 21st thru October
14th, 2002. The wine was aged 20 months in French oak barrels and finally
bottled in July 2004. The results of course, are indeed stunning.
If you would like to learn more about this fantastic winery, visit them at
www.cakebread.com
Caymus
It would be impossible to have a discussion about the great California Super
Cabs without mentioning Caymus. In fact, from 1988 to 1997, Caymus has
had one of their Cabernet Sauvignons make the Wine Spectator’s Top 10
list in six out of those ten years and in 1994, their “Special Selection” cab
was “Wine of The Year”. In 1997, Caymus was named “Best Winery for
Cabernet Sauvignon or Cabernet Blend in California” in the Wine Spectator’
s “Readers’ Choice Awards”. Every single year, their Cabs score
consistently above 90 and when I go to wine auctions, their older Cabs are a
hot ticket among the collectors.
If you said that Charles F. Wagner was born to run a winery, you would be
quite literally right. You see, his forefathers immigrated to the San
Francisco Bay area from Alsace, France, a region known for its amazing
white wines. After the great earthquake of 1906, the Wagner’s acquired
farmland in the Rutherford District of Napa Valley, where in 1912, they
gave birth to our hero Charlie in 1912 on the family ranch. Little did they
know that they had mistakenly settled in one of the greatest places on earth
to grow Cabernet Sauvignon grapes.
In 1941, Charlie and his wife, Lorna Belle Glos, purchased 73 acres in
Rutherford and started to make wine. It wasn’t until the 1960’s, when they
purchased Cabernet grapes from Nathan Fay’s vineyard in Stag’s Leap,
that they started making world class Cabernet Sauvignon wines. By the
1970’s, Cabernet Sauvignon became their sole focus, as they began
producing only two types of Cabs, their regular Estate Cab and their Special
Selection Cab. Both of which are outstanding and neither of them are cheap!
It was 1972 when Charles, Lorna and their son Chuck established the
Caymus Vineyards winery and since then, their reputation has blossomed.
They came up with the name “Caymus” from the Mexican land grant that
encompassed the Rutherford District and surrounding areas. This 19th
century land grant was known as the “Rancho Caymus”. Their son Chuck
took over as winemaker in 1984 and after father Charlie passed away in
2002, he took over all of the winery and business operations.
The 2002 vintage, which comprises the grapes used in the wine we are
reviewing this month, was the culmination of some educated gambles taken
by Chuck that all paid extremely great dividends. It was the first year that
vines he had planted in an area previously thought inhospitable for Cabernet
grapes produced wine grapes that were used in the proprietary blend. This
success was due in large part to his choice in new rootstocks and Cabernet
clones that adapted well to the soil. They also increased vine density to
over 4,000 vines per acre. In laymen terms, what that accomplishes is this;
when more grapes are competing for water and sun, they work harder to
survive and thus produce more concentrated juice. Well, that is the nutshell
version anyway.
The grapes were harvested between the second week of September all the
way through October. The blend is made up of Cabernet Sauvignon grapes
from Rutherford (29%), St. Helena (26%), Atlas Peak (11%) and other
Napa vineyards (23%) with 11% of Merlot from the Carneros region.
These were aged in French Oak made by five different coopers in order to
incorporate their different styles and complexities. They stayed in these
barrels for twenty months before being blended and bottled. The results,
and you can taste for yourself, are truly magnificent!
To learn more about Caymus wines, visit them here: www.caymus.com
Duckhorn
Our third Napa Cult wine hero, Dan Duckhorn, saw his fame and star status
launched, not from Cabernet Sauvignon wines entirely, but rather his
fortunate optimistic belief that California could produce outstanding Merlot
and more importantly, people would want to drink it. His passion for Merlot
was born out of a trip to the St. Emillon and Pomerol villages in Bordeaux,
where some of the greatest Merlot wines in the world are produced and
certainly the most expensive. He believed that the Napa Valley had the
right soil and climate for the grape and that consumers would appreciate
Merlot’s soft texture and the fact that it is easier to pair with food than
Cabernet Sauvignon. Up until Dan began making wines in 1978, California
vintners only considered Merlot for a blending grape and nothing else. His
first year producing wines saw Dan producing 800 cases each of Merlot as
well as Cabernet Sauvignon. I guess you could say, Dan is the father of
California Merlot.
Duckhorn Vineyards was founded in 1976 by Dan and Margaret Duckhorn
and even from the beginning their focus has always been on the Bordeaux
varietals. In 1982 they added the white Bordeaux varietal, Sauvignon Blanc
to their arsenal of wines. Believing that it was these Bordeaux varietals
that were perfect for the Napa Valley, Dan resisted the urge to plant
Chardonnay like so many other California winemakers did.
Dan learned first hand how to assess vineyard sites and pairing varietals
with their most suitable terroir when he became President of the Vineyard
Consulting Corporation (VCC) in 1971. He has since become an extremely
vital figure in the California Wine Industry filling such roles as director of
the Wine Institute, the American Vintners Association and Family
Winemakers of California. He was president of the Napa Valley Vintners
Association and the Wine Service Co-op as well as being a past chair of the
Napa Valley Wine Auction. As you can see, Dan stays busy!
Although Dan is a highly skilled winemaker, Duckhorn wines would not be
where they are today without the help of his wife Margaret. It was
Margaret in the beginning that put in the late hours helping Dan throughout
the harvest time sorting grapes, assisting in blending, etc… And later, she
developed specialized skills in marketing and international public relations.
Thanks to these skills, she was able to get the Duckhorn name out to the
international community as well as the American Wine buying consumers.
Today, Duckhorn has six estate vineyards that are located on the coveted
slopes of Howell Mountain in the Napa Valley. It is from these vineyards
that the lions share of grapes are used to make up the four distinct Merlot
and Cabernet Sauvignon wines that they offer. The blends for these wines
come from almost 200 different and distinctive lots. Each lot is barrel-aged
separately utilizing 25 different types of oak from 13 separate cooperages.
The majority of these barrels come from French oak in the Bordeaux
Chateau style. What else would you expect?
The 2001 season got off to an early start thanks to a warm spring. The crop
levels were low, which can be a good thing and overall quality was excellent
thanks to the mild summer temperatures and longer than normal growing
season. The 2001 Cab was made from 100% Napa Valley grapes from 13
different vineyards harvested from September 8th thru October 8th. The
blend is comprised of 89% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Cabernet Franc and
5% Petit Verdot and aged 19 months in 100% French Oak. (As if we
expected any other variety).
To learn more about Duckhorn Vineyards, check them out here:
www.duckhornvineyards.com
Merryvale
You know, one common theme that keeps re-occurring with most of the
wineries we are profiling this month is a belief that the best grapes grown in
Napa Valley are those of the Bordeaux variety and Merryvale is no
exception here. However, they take it one step further or to the extreme if
you will. Not only do they use Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet
Franc to add to their proprietary blend, the “Profile”, they go the extra mile
and plant small quantities of Petit Verdot as well for authenticity and just a
little extra something that none of the other California wineries have. The
end result is a traditional Bordeaux Claret style blend, but with a California
spin!
Merryvale doesn’t stop there when it comes to emulating the great Chateau
of Bordeaux, because just like the winemakers of France, Merryvale
believes in using only vineyard sites with the best terroir suited for their
grapes. Vineyard sites that have a long track record of producing very
exciting and high quality wine grapes. These would include California’s
prestigious vineyard sites like Beckstoffer’s Vineyard X and Georges III
for their Cabernet Sauvignon, and Las Amigas as well as Showket for
Merlot. All of these places produce grapes or ‘raw materials’ as they call
them in the business, that expresses magnificent varietal expression and
purity of fruit. Both qualities make Merryvale’s winemaker, Stephen Test’s
job that much easier.
Despite the fact that Merryvale was only founded in 1983 by Jack Schlatter
and his family, Lilo, Rene’, Laurence and Jenna, the winery itself was
actually the first one built after the repeal of Prohibition. They are located
in the heart of Napa Valley in the town of St. Helena. I think that is what
separates many of these wineries like Merrvale from the rest in California
and that is the fact that the whole family plays a very active role in the day-
to-day operations of the winery. Merryvale is not run by a corporation that
is hell-bent on bringing in truckloads of the almighty dollar. Instead, the
wines are passionately cared for by people that care very deeply about the
product they put forth to the market and what the wine says to the drinker.
They have total control over the whole process without any interference
from the ‘suits’. Their passion and hard work comes through when you taste
their wine and they must be doing something right because they have been
named “Winery of The Year” seven times from “Wine & Spirits” magazine.
One of the very important decisions the Schlatter family made was to bring
in the highly acclaimed winemaker, Stephen Test. After completing enology
graduate work at UC Davis in 1980, prior to which he had received an
undergraduate degree in biological sciences from Stanford University, he
went to work right away in the wine industry by working for Domaine
Laurier in Sonoma County. He also was the winemaker for Zellerbach
Vineyards, which was later, renamed Stonestreet and was promoted to
general manager in 1997. But when the opportunity to become the
winemaker for a winery such as Merryvale that owned great vineyards sites
and had long-term contracts with other outstanding vineyard owners
presented itself in 1998, Stephen jumped at the chance to once again make
world-class wines.
Merryvale makes many different levels of wines. The entry-level category
of wines is their “Starmont” brand and depending on the varietal, they run
into the $20+ range. I find it somewhat ironic that they refer to these
Starmont wines as ‘entry’ level when they are better than most wineries top
wines. Our focus this month will be on their flagship proprietary blend in the
traditional Bordeaux Claret style called “Profile”.
The 2000 Profile is a wine blend that consists of 56% Cabernet Sauvignon,
40% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc and 1% Petit Verdot for spice! The wines
that make up this blend spent 18 months in French oak chateau barrels from
traditional Bordeaux coopers before being bottled in July of 2002. The end
result is a great wine with nice aging potential. If you are impatient though,
you may decant it now and enjoy it with some well-marbled steaks!
To learn more about Merryvale, visit them at : www.merryvale.com
Cliff Lede Vineyards formally known as S. Anderson
S. Anderson Vineyards was established in 1971 on land beside the
Yountville Cross Road in the Napa Valley. It just so happened that this land
would later become the Stags Leap District, world renowned for it’s
powerful and gripping Cabernet Sauvignon and home to such famous
wineries as Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars. Oddly enough, at first it was not
Cabernet Sauvignon wines that S. Anderson produced from this land, but
rather sparkling wines. The first commercial vintage of sparkling wine they
produced was in 1979 from the grapes they had planted on their property.
This had to seem odd to many others in the area, seeing how this was
Cabernet country, but S. Anderson did in fact become well known for their
sparkling wines. Many of the grapes for these sparkling wines are sourced
from the cooler Carneros region now. It wasn’t until 1989 that S. Anderson
finally produced their first Cabernet Sauvignon wine and the grapes came
from the Richard Chambers Vineyard in the heart of Stags Leap. I’m not
sure why it took them so long to produce a cab, but I’m glad they did!
I came to know S. Anderson wines through their Claret, which is a…you
guessed it…a Bordeaux blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. It was
recommended to me by Alex Morrow, who was at the time working at
Beverage City in Frisco/Plano. What immediately stood out to me was the
fact that it came from the Stags Leap District in Napa. Some of my all-time
favorite Cabernet wines come from this region and at $25.00 or so, it was a
fraction of the price of most of the other Cabs that are produced there. I
must say, I was quite impressed, so much so, that I bought as much as I
could, or that the store had in stock anyway.
In 2002, Cliff Lede (pronounced Lay-dee), a Canadian businessman,
purchased S. Anderson Vineyards. Of course I immediately became
concerned that the little gem that I had found in the S. Anderson Claret was
about to be changed forever. However, Cliff has wasted no time in making
improvements to wine and it’s mostly unknown status. He brought in
Michelle Edwards to be the winemaker in 2004. Michelle had been the
assistant winemaker at Colgin Cellars. Those of you that know your
California Cult Wineries know that they don’t get much bigger than Colgin.
I am very much looking forward to the results of her efforts in future
vintages.
Cliff has also changed the name of the winery to Cliff Lede Vineyards. He
will still be producing sparkling wines under the S. Anderson name, but the
Claret I so dearly love will be under the Cliff Lede name. Cliff wants to
create an experience, one of poetry in life, when you visit his winery in Stags
Leap. He has built the Poetry Inn, which is the only public accommodations
in the area and designed it in such a way to reflect his love of poetry. “We
interpret the word poetry loosely,” says Lede, “We want to create an
experience of depth and breadth here. We want people to find their way to
this relatively undiscovered gem on the Yountville Cross Road and enjoy
the poetry of all the beautiful things in life that we have here: wine, art,
music, nature and architecture. There’s poetry in everything in this valley,
and we want that feeling to pervade this place.”
Even though the 2001 S. Anderson Claret is less than half the price of most
of these other wines that we are reviewing this month, I am confident that it
will stack up to the competition. I am eager to see how it does with our
tasting panel, especially against our other Stags Leap Winery, Shafer. Let
the fun begin!
To check out more info about Cliff Lede Vineyards, you may find them
here: www.cliffledevineyards.com
Shafer
If you drop by Shafer Vineyards for a visit in the Stags Leap District of
Napa Valley, chances are you will encounter a couple of smiling faces in the
form of Jake & Tucker, the Shafer family dogs and official guest greeters.
From what I gather, the whole scene at the Shafer Vineyards estate must be
somewhat laid back and why not, they are surrounded by perfection in every
direction. Hillside vineyards that year after year consistently produce wines
of unbridled passion and pleasure. Why, even the Wine Spectator
Magazine has made the comment that Shafer makes crafting great
Cabernet Sauvignon wines look easy.
It takes many wineries years of patience and practice to achieve success in
the market and certainly even longer for industry acclaim, but that wasn’t
the case with Shafer. John Shafer bought the 210 acre estate in 1972 and
despite the fact it took years of planning and preparation in the vineyards,
John and son Jack’s first crush of Cabernet Sauvignon grapes from the
1978 vintage was released to a chorus of praises. The debut wine was
released in 1981 and promptly took first place in the San Francisco Vintners
Club Cabernet taste-off. And if you can believe this, that same debut wine
fifteen years later came in first place again in a 1993 German blind tasting
against some of the elite first growth Bordeaux wines, including Chateau
Margaux.
Okay, so with a debut like that, surely there is only way to go from there
and that is of course downhill, right? Wrong! If there is one thing that has
been proven evident over the years, whether it was John, Jack or now Elias
making the wines, it is that consistency of quality even in the poorest of
vintages. Shafer just knows how to make great cabs. Doug, who moved out
to Napa Valley with his father and mother when he was seventeen spent a
large portion of his days helping John in the vineyards. He enjoyed it so
much that he went on to UC Davis and studied enology. During his
summers he did some work with Hanns Kornell and Robert Mondavi
Wineries. Not bad people to learn a little something from, eh? He finally
took over as winemaker in 1983 and was shortly thereafter aided by the
current winemaker Elias Fernandez. “Elias and I were working well
together and we’d both learned how intimately you get to know each
vineyard block during crush”, says Jack. I’d say Jack’s right, he does not
each vineyard block well because their consistency in quality is remarkable.
There is a new addition to the Shafer grounds and it is in the way of a black
and white male dog of unknown background. Alfonso Zamora, the vineyard
manager is busy training this dog-named Pinto to chase away the deer that
stop by to gnaw on their grapes. Besides, sampling the wine grapes is Jack
and Tucker’s job, that is when Tucker is not busy eating the mail.
The Shafer 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon is made up from grapes harvested in
the Stags Leap District, Oak Knoll and St. Helena and is comprised of a
blend that is made up of 97% Cabernet Sauvignon, 2% Cabernet Franc and
1% Merlot. This wine was aged for 20 months in 50% new oak, of which,
half is from French Allier and Troncais oak and the other half is American
oak from Missouri. As with all the previous vintages of Shafer Cabernet
wines, this wine is a beauty and consistently so!
If you are interested in learning more about Shafer Vineyards, log on to:
www.shafervineyards.com
Whitehall Lane
In 1979, two brothers started a winery on a plot of land in the historic
Rutherford appellation of Napa Valley that contained an old barn that was
built in the early 1900’s. This barn is still in use today, but things are quite
different around the grounds now. The two brothers began immediately to
make many wines including Cabernet and Merlot. They decided to name
their winery after the road that runs along the south border of the property,
which is called “Whitehall Lane”.
Even though these two brothers were finally starting to turn some heads in
the wine public with their wines, they apparently decided that the wine
business was not for them. So they sold their winery to a successful
businessman from San Francisco in March of 1993. Although Tom
Leonardini Sr. knew nothing about the wine business, he was very
passionate about the subject and he had always been successful in all of his
other business ventures, so he decided to mix a little business with
pleasure?
Tom wasted absolutely no time in making an already good wine, great. He
started by implementing a new barrel-aging program for the wines and he
updated the winery with all new state-of-the-art winemaking equipment.
Although the winery already owned one terrific vineyard, he quickly
acquired four more and signed contracts with other vineyard owners from
which to source more grapes from. All of these vineyards were from
excellent grape viticulture areas. He also brought in the wiz bang
winemaker, Dean Sylvester to take these grapes from all of those new
vineyard sites and craft the Whitehall Lane masterpieces they were about to
unleash to the world.
It didn’t take long for success to come their way because their 1995
Whitehall Lane Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon was heralded as the best red
wine in America by ‘Wine Spectator’ magazine. Since then, the accolades
have continued to pour in. In fact, Whitehall Lane’s Cabs have been in the
top five wines in the world in the ‘Wine Spectator’s’ Top 100 list, three out
of the last five years. They have also been named ‘Winery of the Year’ in
both the “Quarterly Review of Wines’ and ‘Wine and Spirits’ magazines.
Not too shabby!
Even though Tom increased the winery’s vineyard holdings to 110 acres, he
narrowed the focus of the winery down to only Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot,
Sauvignon Blanc, and Chardonnay. By doing so, it allowed winemaker,
Dean Sylvester, to focus more on quality rather than quantity. This is
absolutely vital in making premium wines. The vineyard sites are scattered
throughout the Napa Valley floor in Rutherford and St. Helena and they
consistently provide Whitehall Lane with outstanding fruit to make award-
winning wines with.
Tom has a wife and five kids and he hopes that Whitehall Lane will stay in
the family for generations to come. Two of his children are already directly
involved in the day-to-day operations of the winery. It would be nice to see
this happen as a wine lover myself, because if you notice, all of these
wineries we are talking about this month are privately owned by families.
This really seems to translate into high quality wine from people that are
passionate about them. I have been to a couple of Whitehall Lane tastings
in the DFW area and their wines are always well received by the wine
tasters. Their Cab has especially impressed me because not only did it have
all the right stuff to age for years, it was very drinkable now. I think that is
hard to do with a lot of these big wines. They usually need time to soften the
tannins.
The Whitehall Lane 2001 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon has been
tirelessly constructed of a blend that comprises 83% Cabernet Sauvignon,
12% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc and 1% Petit Verdot. Another Bordeaux
style blend, go figure! The grapes for this wine were harvested between the
middle of September through the middle of October 2001. After extraction
and fermentation, they were aged for twenty months in a combination of
French and American oak barrels. The Merlot was added for its softness
and as an added layer of complexity, while the Cab Franc and Petit Verdot
add a touch of spice to the final blend. As someone that has tasted this wine
personally, I can tell you that it all came together quite well and has a profile
that should be well received by the majority of American wine drinkers.
If you would like to hear more about Whitehall Lane, log on to their website
located at: http://www.whitehalllane.com/
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