Kudos for the Caymus Cabernet

To collectors of California Cabernet Sauvignons, there is an immediate, visceral response when new vintage wines are released from wineries such as Stag’s Leap, Mondavi, Heitz, Dunn, Forman, and Spottswoode.

Include at the top of that list Caymus. For those unfamiliar with the name, it should be stated up front that for my money no producer of high-quality Cabernet Sauvignon in the state exceeds Caymus for either quality or consistency.

And with its 1985 Special Selection Cabernet, Caymus achieves its pinnacle wine. Rarely if ever has a Cabernet struck me with as much impact. The amazing violet-spice complexity wrapped around a carload of berrylike, cherry-ish fruit play tag with nuances of vanilla, toasted oak and faint cigar-box scents to produce one of the most intense wines ever made in California. The taste is hard to describe, so packed with currant and chocolate flavor and yet the wine is not heavy-handed in any way.

This is a baby, needing years before it’ll show all the grace and richness buried deep within. Yet it can be consumed with great pleasure today, it’s so well balanced. Tasting the wine, I was reminded of a description of a great but supple Cabernet I heard years ago: an iron fist in a velvet glove.

Sure, there are other great Cabernets out there, but for sheer strength of varietal character and depth, the ’85 Caymus SS, as fans call it, is to my mind the ultimate treat.

Now the bad news, and its twofold: There’s hardly any of the wine available, and if you find a bottle, it’ll likely be higher than its released price of $55. Demand has been high by the cognoscenti.

Visiting Caymus, one sees a winery that looks pretty much as it did nearly two decades ago when crusty Napa Valley grape grower Charles Wagner founded the place. The wine making facility is small; barrels are stacked hither and yon. You need a forklift to get at any barrel beyond the first tier.

Chuck Wagner, son of the owner, is the wine maker these days, but like his father (who remains the figurehead of the winery), he believes strongly that the grapes give him all he needs for his wines. Thus he experiments constantly in the vineyards, trying various trellising and planting systems, different rootstocks and changing growing conditions to gain the complexity he desires.

His soil-testing experiments may yet produce some revolutionary growing methods for Cabernet in the Napa Valley.

Wagner is a low-key fellow who views his wine making methods proprietarily, yet he is eager to note that Caymus Special Selection is entirely Cabernet Sauvignon; no Merlot or Petite Verdot is added.

Also, he is proud of the fact that the grapes he harvests from his 40-acre property east of the Napa River have such strong fruit components that the wine can spend as much as three years in oak barrels before being bottled and still not lose its aroma.

Another element to this wine is the fact that after fermentation in steel tanks, it is racked into upright wooden vats for some months to settle before going into the small oak barrels, a procedure used by only a few wineries.

“Our process requires a lot of air in the wine,” said Wagner. “We think it livens the wine up.” But he said each barrel is tasted before it is racked to another vessel and each barrel is treated as if it were completely separate from the others (which, of course, it is).

For those who can’t find or afford the Special Selection, a superb approximation of it is Caymus Napa Valley Cabernet, which recently leaped in price from $18 to $22 because of demand. (Some stores may not yet have marked bottles up.) The 1985 and 1986 Caymus Napa Valley Cabernets are spectacular wines in their own right, both of which will age handsomely for a decade or more.

If you feel $22 is a bit high for a Cabernet, consider this: I have tasted the 1985 many times and its wonderful cherry/olive/mint complexity and pipe tobacco nuances remind me of most other people’s reserve wines.

In fact, in a blind tasting two weeks ago, 1985 Caymus Napa Valley finished third of eight wines, topped only by the new 1985 Fetzer Reserve ($24) and 1985 Cain Five ($30).

Caymus Cabernets age as well as any I have tasted. This was proved again at a tasting staged by Caymus at Highlands Inn in Carmel two weeks ago, during the Masters of Food and Wine event.

Wagner poured his 1983, 1984 and 1985 Special Selection wines for a small group of tasters and the ’85 was favored by a shade over the ‘84, though I liked the latter because it was slightly more developed. An extra year in the bottle has helped the ’84 become more impressive; the ’85 will show even better a year from now.

But all agreed that this was mere hair-splitting because even the ‘83, from a rather awkward year in California, still was magnificent.

A third Caymus Cabernet, called Napa Valley Cuvee, is another winner from this small property, and each succeeding wine with this designation is better than the last. The 1986, just released at $15, is a marvelous wine that recently scored better than 1985 Dominus ($47) in a blind tasting.

Interestingly, Caymus has given up making a Chardonnay because, said Wagner, “We weren’t among the best ones being made, so why keep making it?”

But Caymus 1987 Zinfandel ($9.75) continues the winery’s long tradition with this California variety. The deep spice character of the fruit is accented by a hint of pine (from aging in American oak barrels). This rough-hewn wine goes well with pasta.

A new hit for Caymus is its 1986 Pinot Noir ($15). The elder Wagner long has been proud of his Pinot Noir, yet only now and then did the wines ring true to varietal type. But with a new source of grapes for this 1986 wine, the result is a turnaround.

The mint, toast and cherry-like fruit depict Pinot character in full and the aftertaste is lush and approachable. Fruit from Yountville and Carneros provides better character than the grapes once used from the center of the Napa Valley.

The finishing touches are now being put on a 27,000 square foot building that will eventually house the barrels and case goods, and that will free up winery space so the Wagners can make even more of their Liberty School wines that have become a prime second label for Caymus.

Some 66,000 cases of the Liberty School wine are now made, and Liberty School Cabernet, previously a good value, should improve markedly in the coming years because the winery has purchased better Cabernet grapes and wine to blend and age than in the past.

The Special Selection Cabernet, however, is the wine everyone wants, and demand for it was so high and production so small (1,000 cases) that some retailers and restaurants wound up getting shortchanged on orders they expected to get. One top Napa Valley restaurant wound up getting just three bottles of the wine and now isn’t sure who will have the right to consume it.

A spectacular redesigned label and classic tapered bottle make the package worth seeing.

Another point about this wine is that it is a true collectable. Caymus Special Selection wines typically rise in value rapidly after they are released. The 1978 Special Selection, the first one made in large quantity (600 cases) sold initially for $30. Today it has a value of $100. Even Caymus’ Napa Valley-designated Cabernets have a much higher value in time. The 1974, which was released at $7.50, now has a retail/auction price well above $100.

One reason for this is that Caymus makes excellent Cabernets even in the “off” vintages, making them sort of the California version of Chateau Latour.

Wine of the Week: 1988 Markham Chardonnay ($12)--Lovely aroma of pears and tropical fruit and a delicate honeysuckle undertone make this wine immediately likeable. But there’s also a hint of oak and a soft, appealing finish. With prices for California Chardonnay going up rapidly, this wine represents excellent value.