SommSelect Editorial Director David Lynch weighs in on Napa Cabernet collectibles and how elegance and restraint factor into the California wine landscape.
Although I spend a lot of my time drinking and writing about Italian wine, I’m hardly impervious to the charms of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. Like most American wine geeks, I was weaned on this stuff; only later did I discover the Old World European classics. As a sommelier and quasi “critic”—we don’t assign scores here but we do view everything we offer through a critical lens—I’m in the habit of comparing wines like this Napa Cabernet from Larkmead with their classical European counterparts, which in this case would be Bordeaux. Since at least the “Paris Tasting” of 1976, if not before, we’ve evaluated American wines this way—what greater compliment for an American Pinot Noir than to call it ‘Burgundian,’ right?—but if any American wine has broken free from its wannabe-European shackles and become a “classic” unto itself, it’s Napa Cabernet. The great Napa Cabernets of the 1970s and ‘80s were certainly closer to Bordeaux in style than the heavily extracted generation of “cult” wines that followed, but they were nevertheless distinct, and worthy of being judged on their own merits. I say all this because Larkmead winemaker Dan Petroski has not only paid homage to a great California wine man with this 2013 “Dr. Olmo,” he’s paid homage to the old-school Napa Cabs of yore. Favoring elegance and aromatic complexity over bulk, this is a filigree of a Cabernet from a place that has become better known for brute force. The 2013 is the inaugural release of “Dr. Olmo,” and, in my mind, it’s an instant classic.
{Note: This wine was released to Larkmead’s mailing list last Fall, and to a few select retailers, but we’ve managed a substantial allocation (at a great price) to share with you.}
The Larkmead winery is itself a classic, first founded in 1895 and widely known as one of the most historic properties in Napa. Since acquiring the property in 1992, owners Cam Baker and Kate Solari-Baker have invested not just in the elegant, Howard Backen-designed winery and farmhouse but, more importantly, in the vineyards. On their arrival, all of Larkmead’s 110 acres were re-planted, with an eye toward obtaining the perfect clonal selections for each parcel; these days, individual vineyard blocks are vinified separately, in an effort to showcase the geological diversity of this seemingly “contiguous” valley floor site.
This is where “Dr. Olmo” comes in: The name is an homage to Dr. Harold P. Olmo, a legendary UC Davis professor whom Petroski describes as “the Indiana Jones of wine grapes.” Olmo was a pioneering California viticulturist who conducted clonal research trials on the Larkmead property in the 1940s and ‘50s. He took a selection of Cabernet ‘clones’ from those Larkmead trials and propagated them, and these “Oakville Clones,” as they came to be known, formed the foundation of the California wine industry in the 1960s. About 50% of the grapes used in this 2013 are planted on the very same site of Olmo’s clonal trials—a plot of almost pure gravel that gives the wine its sinewy muscularity.
Situated just south of Calistoga, Larkmead is at the narrowest point in the Napa Valley. Its vineyards are bisected by the Napa River and crisscrossed by more ancient alluvial flows, lending the vineyards a more diverse geology than one might expect from “valley floor” viticulture. There are pockets of pure gravel interspersed with sand, silt, and clay, and Petroski and company have endeavored to speak to this diversity through the wines. The “Dr. Olmo” bottling is one of three reserve-level bottlings released by Larkmead, each one effectively vinified by soil type: “Dr. Olmo,” from the purest gravel soils, is the most fine-grained and fresh of the three, while “The Lark” and “Solari” both derive more power and extract from richer soils.
I was just a kid when some of those old-school Cabernets I referenced above—Heitz, Mayacamas, BV, etc.—were at the point “Dr. Olmo” is at now, but I have tasted those classics in their old age, and I’m convinced that Dr. Olmo will one day join their ranks. This is not a fruit bomb style that bombards the palate with extract—it is restrained, refined, tightly wound, and focused. Even at this relatively young age it isn’t all one note, but many: In the glass it’s an opaque, blackish-ruby moving to magenta at the rim, with a complex and generous nose that mixes the sweet/savory aspects of the Cabernet grape beautifully: there’s cassis, black currant, and blueberry, along with graphite, cedar, tea, cocoa powder, coffee, tobacco, and violets. Perhaps most striking is its balance—this, and not any surplus of tannin, extract, or alcohol, is what will enable this wine to age for decades. Right now, the wine is angular, aromatic, and fresh (like those Cabernets of yesteryear) with ultra-fine, silty tannins that enliven the palate. All in all, this is an impeccably tailored wine with a long, aromatic finish. Its balance lends it great accessibility now, though if you decide to open one I’d suggest decanting it about an hour before service in large Bordeaux stems. Each sip is to be savored slowly, and I really look forward to what this wine becomes in 10-20 years (my guess is exotically perfumed and smooth as glass). If you can swing it, do find a way to hold on to a few of these. Paired with something like a simple duck confit (see attached recipe), it makes the case for California Cabernet Sauvignon as eloquently as any I’ve tried. Don’t miss it.
— David Lynch
