Diamond Creek Volcanic Hill Cabernet Sauvignon 2017
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Winemaker Notes
Critical Acclaim
All VintagesBeautiful aromas of brambleberries and blueberries with some conifer and mushrooms. Floral, too. Medium to full body, very fine tannins and succulent fruit and spices. Extremely long and subtle. Glorious and refined now, but will be better with age. Try after 2022.
The 2017 Volcanic Hill starts out on a woodsy, less-immediately fruity note on the nose, but, while it takes a few minutes to show it, it is well-endowed with the deep, very precise, cassis-like fruit of top-shelf Cabernet Sauvignon and unequivocally confirms it with its building, impressively extracted flavors. Most definitely not a wine that should be opened and poured before seven to ten years have passed, it is yet another classic from Diamond Creek that is destined to reach its twentieth anniversary with life and layered richness to spare.
This 2017 Volcanic Hill is one of the sexiest cabernets I’ve tasted from California. To mitigate the possible smoke taint, Steinschriber bathed the grapes in a one-ton fermenter, then rinsed them in a half-ton bin with drainage holes in the bottom. This vintage of Volcanic Hill seemed a little beyond his control, but its wildness only adds to the irresistible beauty of the wine, maybe because the normally fierce tannins were tamed to the kind of rocky wild-blueberry skin richness that takes a Diamond Mountain wine into the pleasure sphere, both sensual and intellectual, of first-growth Bordeaux.
Diamond Mountain is the northernmost mountain appellation in the Mayacamas Range, on the northwest side of the valley floor, above the town of Calistoga. Defined mainly by elevation, vineyards are planted at 400 to 2,200 feet.
Diamond Mountain vineyards receive plenty of sunshine at these elevations and are typically above the coastal fog line. But given its western proximity, the area still easily cools down from early morning and late afternoon Pacific Ocean breezes. The AVA (American Viticultural Area) covers 5,000 acres but just over 500 acres are under vine.
Diamond Mountain soils, mainly weathered, red sedimentary rock and decomposed, volcanic ash, are infertile, quick-draining and produce small, thick-skinned grapes, bursting with chewy tannins.
Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Petit Verdot and Zinfandel have great success here.
Like other sub-appellations in Napa Valley, the Diamond Mountain area had no shortage of pioneer winemakers. Rudy von Strasser led the effort for Diamond Mountain to acquire AVA status in 1999.
A noble variety bestowed with both power and concentration, Cabernet Sauvignon enjoys success all over the globe, its best examples showing potential to age beautifully for decades. Cabernet Sauvignon flourishes in Bordeaux's Medoc where it is often blended with Merlot and smaller amounts of some combination of Cabernet Franc, Malbecand Petit Verdot. In the Napa Valley, ‘Cab’ is responsible for some of the world’s most prestigious, age-worthy and sought-after “cult” wines. Somm Secret—DNA profiling in 1997 revealed that Cabernet Sauvignon was born from a spontaneous crossing of Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc in 17th century southwest France.