Remember the style of Cabernet that made headlines a few years ago? You know, the big, formidable, heavily oaked names from the ‘90s and early 2000s or the cult labels with prices reaching into the stratosphere?
Shed Horn Cellars’ 2012 Cabernet shares very little with overripe, portly (and porty) California Cabs of the steakhouse era.
A double gold winner at the 2015 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition, it showcases poise and self-confidence rather than overt swagger. Where Cabernets from recent decades sank into plush tannins and dark, leathery richness, Shed Horn is not afraid to show off a softer, brighter side.
“Those wines masked the fruit flavor,” observed Shed Horn winemaker Michael Wood. “We want the fruit to show through.”
It does. Riding over the earthy tobacco, bitter chocolate funk and ripe black fruit one expects from a centerpiece Cabernet are fluttering notes of raspberry and lighter fare. This carries through, balancing not only the hearty depth, but also the wine’s lingering finish, tugged by vanilla and dried oak.
Shed Horn’s 2012 Cabernet is a wine of layers uncovered and portioned with care, even on the nose, where the rushing red fruit cannot outpace the plodding gentility of dark cherry and crushed rose petals.
Either sensation — the aroma, the fist taste — tampers with your thoughts. You might blurt “this is really good” as I did, but you intend something more. Your mind just becomes lost in anticipation of the next sip.
“It turned out very well,” Wood acknowledged. “We’re excited about it.”
The finished product hardly shows any of the challenges presented by the growing season. As the 2012 harvest approached, rain began to fall. The Cabernet grapes held up relatively well to this development, but yielded juice that was lighter in color.
To compensate, Wood blended in small amounts of Malbec and Petite Verdot, amounting to about 2 percent of the total volume.
“We were happy with the quality, but we didn’t know what we really had until playing with the blend,” Wood recalled.
After about an hour of tweaking, he hit gold — or double gold, as it turns out.
Shed Horn’s 2012 is another indication of change in the market’s consideration of Cabernet and the public’s taste for the vaunted varietal. No longer do big names and cult labels — Opus One, Screaming Eagle — consume all the attention. Fans of Cabernet learned again to appreciate the subtleties introduced by trimming hang time, easing up on the oak, allowing terroir and the vicissitudes of a growing season to flow through.
Wood used no more than 20 percent new oak in settling the 2012 Cabernet. The combination of experience — Wood has more than three decades of winemaking under his belt — and a desire to show off the fruit made for a memorable, award winning vintage.
“In my mind, I new what I wanted,” Wood said. Clearly the rest of the wine-drinking world yearns for the same thing.
Dave Faries can be reached at 900-2016
