An Old Alexander Valley Cabernet: Sometimes It's Better To Drink, Not Cellar Your Wine

In preparing for my trip to Napa, Sonoma, and Mendocino later this month, I'm priming my palate for the bigger wines that I'm bound to encounter. So last night M.C. Ice and I cracked a bottle of 2002 Hall Cabernet Sauvignon from Alexander Valley. It was a gift given to us last year by a friend who was trying to get rid of some of his wines (he was downsizing), truth be told, and I'm not sure why we hadn't opened it until now. It was a good thing we did.

Alexander Valley is way up North in Sonoma County (teal color on the map). There ain't much doin' there, except a Native American casino (did NOT go over well with the wine folk, BTW) and prodigious amounts of vineyard land owned by such famous (or infamous, as the case may be) names as Chateau Souverain, Jordan, Simi, Kendall-Jackson, and the Gallo Family. If you drive up 101, the main artery through Sonoma, as it veers northeast of the esteemed area of the Russian River Valley, you'll slice through the western tip of the Alex and see it in all its glory.

The temperature in the Alexander Valley is great for making the sexy, fleshy, mouthfilling wines that so many people are crazy about. There are huge variations in temperature from day to night so grapes develop sugars while luxuriating in the sun, and then develop acid in the coolness of the night. A great combo for making voluptuous, enjoy-now wines!

Right now, the hot grapes for the region are Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot (although a ton of other stuff from Chardonnay to Cabernet Franc is also grown there). There seems to be some consensus that this may change with time to Zinfandel and Sauvignon Blanc...if the bottle we had is any indication, I'd advise them to explore that...

Hall is a great winery. It's been around for about 30 years and mainly makes Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. The winery is family owned, completely green -- LEED Certified, which means its buildings sap as little from the environment as possible, and organically farmed, which means farmers don't add chemicals to the land and use methods like composting -- and generally makes solid Napa Cabs. But the wine I had was from the T Bar T Ranch Vineyard and, true to form for so many Alexander Valley Cabs, the wine should have been chugged about 3 years ago -- it's not one for aging.

Here's the rundown:

The Wine: Hall Cabernet Sauvignon, T Bar T Ranch

Where It's From: Alexander Valley, Sonoma County

The Grapes: I can't find the wine notes. In the US wine is only required to be 75% of what's on the label for them to label it with a single grape (85% in Europe, FYI, 90% for Oregon Pinot Noir). So all I can say is that it's at least 75% Cabernet Sauvignon.

Vintage: 2002

Price: $45

Color: If there is a descriptor I would rarely use to describe the color of Cabernet Sauvignon it would be "light." And yet this wine just looked totally pansy. It was a pale garnet with a light brown edge and looked like a Pinot Noir, not like a Cabernet from a hot winegrowing region. I was instantly concerned, but since sight can tell you little about a wine, I persevered (I knew it was going to be a horror show, I'm going on record here).

Smell: Ok, now we're talking. There was some action on the nose. Black currant (like preserves), blackberry jam, some black pepper, leather, and cedar chips were hanging around. You know those wet walnuts on a sundae bar? Smelled like those too. Nothing too pungent, so I assumed it was probably a balanced, refined wine instead of a fruit bomb. Unusual to have an Alexander Valley wine that ISN'T bursting with fruit, but I digress.

Taste: I think it must be 75% Cab and 25% water. This wine was such a wimp. It tasted like flat Dr. Pepper -- faint black cherry, some cinnamon, a little lemon, some black pepper, and a touch of cola. It was a little tangy, mouth-drying, and tannic but just lightly so. There were some very vague mocha notes but this wine was boring, one-dimensional, and flat.

Food: Without food it was like a cheap Pinot Noir, with food it was completely drowned out by M.C. Ice's steak (I tasted the juice and the seasoning since I don't do red meat).

Drink or Down the Sink?: Ultimately, this is a cautionary tale about saving wine for too long or receiving it as a gift from someone else's collection. Alexander Valley wines are not known to have stellar aging ability. They're best if you drink them before 5 years is out. That means when we received the wine last year, it was probably past its prime. The wine tasted tired and old. Time fades bright flavors, fruit, and things like tannin and acid. In some wines, this creates a highly positive new group of flavors, but in this wine, not so much.

Hypothetically, if the wine wasn't past it's prime, there's another consideration -- how the wine was stored or transported. Our friend warned us that the wine had made a trip cross-country in a moving truck. Without proper temperature control, packaging to minimize vibration, and gentle handling, wines can kind of fall apart and taste bad. They usually are pretty distinctive in their badness when this happens. I don't think this was the case with the Hall, but for future reference, when you get a gift from someone else's cellar, caveat emptor (do YOU know where that bottle's been???).

I've got my lineup for Napa set, but if you have suggestions of places you want me to check out while I'm in Sonoma, please write on my Facebook page or send me an email!