I am an avowed and career-long lover of European wine. Still, once or twice per year I have a near-spiritual experience with an American wine. Last night a close friend brought over a mint condition 14 year old bottle of Ahlgren Cabernet Sauvignon from Dexter and Val Ahlgren’s own personal cellar. With one taste, it felt like time stopped.
We immediately re-corked the bottles of far higher priced Chassagne-Montrachet and Barbaresco on the table and redirected our attention exclusively to this extraordinary wine. Its exquisite aromatics, pristine beauty and absolutely peak maturity earn it a perfect 10 in my book. I feel strongly that Ahlgren is one of America’s great unsung Cabernet producers. Still, encountering a bottle of the family’s top wine from the celebrated 2002 vintage (from their own cellar, no less) is an especially humbling experience. Please join us in thanking Val and Dexter Ahlgren for opening their library collection to SommSelect’s customers, and rest assured that this bottle will land at, or near the top of your “Best of 2016” list.
We live in an era of many mega-priced, sticky sweet California reds. So, it’s easy to forget that the state’s reputation for producing superlative Cabernet Sauvignon didn’t begin in lavish tasting rooms or with exorbitantly priced real estate; but rather in garages and basements of normal everyday people. We hopped on the phone with Val Ahlgren after becoming infatuated with this bottle and it turns out the Ahlgren’s story is as inspiring as their wine.
In the early 1970’s Val Ahlgren was a community college instructor and her husband, Dexter, was a civil engineer in what would eventually become Silicon Valley. In her off hours, Val developed an interest in fermentation and was soon making small batches of mead and elderberry wine in mason jars. One mason jar lead to larger glass “carboy” fermenter, and soon the Ahlgrens were receiving their first ton of wine grapes at the driveway of their modest house at the base of the Santa Cruz mountains. It quickly became apparent that Dexter Ahlgren possessed an equally gifted palate and a natural acuity for the more mechanical aspects of winemaking.
Keep in mind, this was still the very beginning of the California artisan winemaking movement. Val shared that when she and her husband produced their first vintage in 1976, there were only 13 bonded wineries in the Santa Cruz Mountains! 40 years later, Val is full of incredible stories. My favorite involves her recollection of how most local wineries were using decommissioned, and sometimes quite decrepit, domestic brandy barrels to age wine. She described driving to a shipping depot in a caravan of pickup trucks with original Ridge winemaker Dave Bennion to sign for their first delivery of Wisconsin oak barrels. As it turns out, these were the same American oak barrels that help make Monte Bello one of the most prized Cabernet Sauvignons on Earth, and helped define the character of Santa Cruz Mountain wine for decades to come.
Of course, wine is not made by great barrels and talented winemaking, alone. Val says “In many ways we’ve never been sophisticated winemakers. We’ve just always started with great grapes.” Val and Dexter hopped on at the ground floor with the Bates Ranch vineyard after it was planted in the early 1970s. Today, followers of SommSelect will recognize Bates Ranch as the celebrated vineyard of origin for Cabernets from classic producers like Santa Cruz Mountain Winery and contemporary Sommelier favorites like Ghostwriter, but the Ahlgrens have spent the last four decades mastering this hillside vineyard. Val says that for her, Bates Ranch is a special site for Cabernet Sauvignon for a variety reasons. First, in the early days it was one of the very few locations in the appellation that could fully ripen the variety. Even top wines like Ridge Monte Bello were sometimes de-acidified during this era to avoid underripe, astringent qualities in the finished product. Next, Val stresses that the Bates Ranch vineyard has never been irrigated and and it’s now four decades-old vines sit at an impressive 2,000 feet elevation. So, they are essentially hard wired to produce modest yields and optimal concentration for perfect red wine. She says “If you get three tons per acre in a vintage, you praise the Lord!”
In the cellar, Val and Dexter are similarly straightforward as when they started in the 1970s. Grapes are fermented in old, open top tanks. Punch downs are performed by hand until the wine is transferred using a classic blatter press into stainless steel tanks for settling before aging in neutral American oak barrels. Val stresses that she and Dexter have always used mature but extremely clean and well maintained barrels. This process avoids sticky, oaky aromas in their wines while protecting against the funk and flaws that give older barrels a bad reputation for some contemporary winemakers. Val says she still prizes neutral American oak as she did in the 1970s because it preserves the purity of the Bates Ranch terroir. She says barrels are used not to add aroma or texture, but to gently soften and guide the wine toward maturity. “Oak barrels act as filter between the wine and the atmosphere in our cellar.” As with many of my favorite producers on Earth, the final and perhaps most important step in the process is Time. Val and Dexter Ahlgren are known and respected for sitting on wines for years until release – this 2002 Bates Ranch Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon sat in their cellar for over a decade before Dexter deemed it perfect for release!
The 2002 Ahlgren Bates Ranch Reserve is exactly what it should be – a perfectly mature, shining example of the primacy of California Cabernet. 2002 is one of my favorite “sleeper vintages” for California wine. Following the warm and ripe 2001 growing season, some critics were underwhelmed by 2002’s upon release. Still, collectors and Sommeliers immediately recognized that 2002’s long, even and slightly cooler growing season would produce wines of added complexity and with far superior cellar potential.
This wine delivers all the above in spades with a dark garnet red core that quickly moves to slight orange reflections on the meniscus. High toned aromatics of of preserved black plum, dried cherry, redcurrants, damp forest, wet violets, red tobacco, black mushroom and a touch of cocoa all integrate with the perfect, subtle oak spice. On the palate, the wine is far more full and luxurious than the nose forecasts. Without one ounce of excessive richness, this wine maintains impressive depth and power – while still managing to float over the palate rather than hammer it. This is exactly how I want California Cabernet Sauvignon to drink, and it’s a characteristic shared by the most memorable back vintage bottles from my favorite producers like Dunn, Corison, Ridge Monte Bello, and early vintages of Caymus. The broad and seemingly endless finish walks the perfect tightrope between sweetness and savory. This wine is a work of art. Decanting is not necessary, simply pull the cork on this bottle an hour before serving at roughly 60-65 degrees in Bordeaux stems. Please serve slightly cooler if in a warm space. The bottle should blossom and stay in its peak for 30-45 minutes after being poured in the glass. As with most great older wines, there may be a touch of earthiness immediately after you open the bottle that will quickly blow off and reveal a pristine, perfectly aged wine – so be patient, and enjoy the fireworks!
