Crescendo

Winemaker Tim Callahan was the winemaker at Koves-Newlan in Yountville when he custom-crushed this wine for negociant Crescendo Hills Vineyard at Artesa Winery in the Carneros. However, the Cabernet Sauvignon grapes came from Koves-Newlan’s estate vineyard (the Malbec, Cab Franc and Petit Verdot are from the Hillview Vineyard just a half-mile up the road and south of Yountville). K-N since has been sold, so Callahan is now the winemaker for Crescendo.

I liked this wine a bit better than Crescendo’s other Cab-based wine it calls Virtuoso. The regular bottling is young and closed, as one might expect of such a young wine. But once in the mouth, it’s smooth with a substantial backbone, excellent depth and balance. Hold it for a year and then drink it over the ensuing seven.

The wine was fermented in French oak, 45 percent of which was new, 35 percent was 1- and 2-year-old barrels, and the remainder was even older. The listed alcohol is 14.2 percent and there were only 800 cases produced.

Reviewed December 30, 2006 by Alan Goldfarb.