Roots Run Deep The Graduate Cabernet Sauvignon 2016
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The 2016 Graduate is always a favorite in our blending sessions. It offers seductive aromas of wild fruits, cassis and warm blackberry pie that invites you in for more. Hints of freshly shaved chocolate, pencil shavings, and ripe fruit compote mesh well with soft, robust tannins that provide for a mouthwatering finish.
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In 2017, Macario Montoya joined Mark Albrecht’s team at Roots Run Deep as winemaker, responsible for blending four different “Higher Education” cabernets. Each originates at a different block in the vineyard, which ranges in elevation from 1,700 to 2,000 feet; each is fermented with a different strain of yeasts and aged in different cooperage. This one spends its time in Seguin Moreau barrels, and the blend includes five percent each of malbec and merlot from Pritchard Hill; those factors tame the dynamic power of its mountain-grown tannins, yielding a trumpet blare of volcanic-soil intensity. Having tasted all four, this one struck our panelists as the most vibrant, layering red, yellow and orange-toned fruit in sunset colors, lasting on herbs, smoke and depths of earthy savor. It’s a complex wine, with all of its details aligned.
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Wine Enthusiast
Spiced plum, cedar and tobacco highlight a generously full-bodied, concentrated wine that’s deeply etched in tannin and oak. It was blended with 5% Merlot and 5% Malbec.
Roots Run Deep Winery was founded in 2005 with the promise of producing unparalleled wine from the Napa Valley at prices everyone can afford. Grapes grown by the best producers in Yountville, Oakville, Rutherford and Carneros wine districts go into making these wines superb in quality and unmatched in value. Proprietor Mark Albrecht is a 15-year veteran in the wine industry and has been involved in all aspects of the industry from restaurant to retail, and wholesaler to supplier. Mark was instrumental in the creation, strategic planning and marketing of many successful wine brands and brings that passion to Roots Run Deep. His philosophy is that great wines can be affordable and Roots Run Deep Winery is dedicated to producing wines that can compete with $50+ wines for a fraction of the price.
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.
Today Cabernet Sauvignon is the star of this part of Napa’s rugged, eastern hills, but Zinfandel was responsible for giving the Howell Mountain growing area its original fame in the late 1800s.
Winemaking in Howell Mountain was abandoned during Prohibition, and wasn’t reawakened until the arrival of Randy Dunn, a talented winemaker famous for the success of Caymus in the 1970s and 1980s. In the early eighties, he set his sights on the Napa hills and subsequently astonished the wine world with a Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon. Shortly thereafter Howell Mountain became officially recognized as the first sub-region of Napa Valley (1983).
With vineyards at 1,400 to 2,000 feet in elevation, they predominantly sit above the fog line but the days in Howell Mountain remain cooler than those in the heart of the valley, giving the grapes a bit more time on the vine.
The Howell Mountain AVA includes 1,000 acres of vineyards interspersed by forestlands in the Vaca Mountains. The soils, shallow and infertile with good drainage, are volcanic ash and red clay and produce highly concentrated berries with thick skins. The resulting wines are full of structure and potential to age.
Today Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Petite Sirah thrive in this sub-appellation, as well as its founding variety, Zinfandel.