A 40-year retrospective tasting with the Richard Arrowood
Last Wednesday’s historic tasting of 40 years worth of wines produced by Richard Arrowood was not only a testament to the oeuvre of one of California’s greatest living winemakers, but a refreshing reminder—if one were needed—of how well Sonoma Valley wines, red and white, can age.
Richard invited a small group of us to the tasting of some 60 wines. We gathered at his idyllic Amapola Creek Winery, in the hills above Sonoma Valley, just below Monte Rosso Vineyard, then motored further up the mountain to the home he shares with his wife, Alis, where the grand event took place.
Richard began his career at Korbel in 1965, created a series of famous, great single-vineyard wines at Chateau St. Jean in the 1970s, and then presided over his own Arrowood Winery (which eventually passed into the Jackson Family Wines portfolio.) He launched his Amapola Creek venture in 2001.
Space precludes me from writing about each of the sixty wines we tasted, but I will provide overviews of each of the flights, and include the top wine/s from each. Richard, in his introductory remarks, said one of his purposes was to show how well these wines can age. Indeed, the tasting illustrated that, many times over. All wines bear a Sonoma Valley appellation.
Flight 1. Chateau St. Jean Zinfandel.
These were all from the Wildwood (now Kunde Estate) and Glen Ellen (Moon Mountain) vineyards.
1976 Chateau St. Jean Wildwood Vineyards Zinfandel. Crowd favorite. Sweet blackberry jam, violets, bouquet garni, cocoa nib, espresso. Alcohol 13.9%. Score: 91.
Flight 2. Chateau St. Jean Cabernet Sauvignon.
These were from the Wildwood, Glen Ellen, Laurel Glen (pre-Patrick Campbell) and Jack London vineyards.
1977 Chateau St. Jean Laurel Glen Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon. Good color. Spice. Cassis, black currants, cassis liqueur. Amazingly rich, sweet, still so fresh and vibrant. Superb. 13.9%. Score: 94
Fight 3. Arrowood white wines.
These were from the Alary and Saralee’s vineyards, both in Russian River Valley.
2009 Arrowood Saralee’s Vineyard Viognier. Tropical fruit, green melon, honey. Rich and exotic. Tremendous power. Great job balancing Viognier’s exoticness with structure and dryness. Drinking well now. 14.4%. Score: 94.
Flight 4. Arrowood Malbec and Syrah.
Except for the Sonoma County-appellated Malbec, these were all from Saralee’s Vineyard.
Arrowood 2004 Malbec. Good dark color at the age of nearly eleven years. Fruit drying out. Dried blackberry, grilled meat bone, shaved dark chocolate, cassis. Softly tannic. Tons of sweet black currant liqueur. Beautiful now. 14.5%. Score: 93.
But I want to praise a pair of Syrahs, the 2006 Saralee’s and the 2002 Saralee’s. Both scored 92 points.
Flight 5. Arrowood Cabernet Sauvignon.
These were all from the Monte Rosso Vineyard, or were Richard’s Réserve Spéciale bottling, except for the 1990 and 1991; I don’t know the grape sourcing on the latter two.
This was an incredible flight. It was hard to pick a “best,” but I went with the Arrowood 2005 Monte Rosso Cabernet. Good dark color. Heady, lots of black currants, cedar. Very rich, heady, sweet, opulent. Superb now and will age for many years. 15.8%. Score: 95. Concerning the alcohol level, the wine was not in the least hot.
Runner-ups: A pair of Réserve Spéciales, 1994 and 1993. Both were gorgeous 20-year old Cabs. I scored both at 94 points.
Flight 6. Amapola Creek Cabernet Sauvignon.
These were all from Richard’s estate vineyard, just below Monte Rosso. All the wines are eminently ageable.
2005 Amapola Creek Estate Vineyard Cabernet. Beginning to show bottle bouquet and development. Softly tannic, supple, rich in black cherries and mocha. Balanced, complex. Will drink well through at least 2025. 15.5%. Score: 94.
Flight 7. Amapola Creek Zinfandel.
Eight were Zins, mainly from the estate vineyard, with a few from Monte Rosso. Richard put a Petite Sirah in among them.
Amapola Creek 2008 Monte Rosso Zinfandel. Monte Rosso Zins, for me, can get too high and hot in alcohol, and the flavors can turn raisiny, even pruney. But the ’08 was the best of the lot, despite the heat waves of the vintage. I called it “claret-like” (an appraisal Margo Van Staaveren, sitting next to me, shared). Tons of fruit, spice and cocoa, balanced and elegant, yet always with Zin’s powerful, briary character. 15.1%. Score: 92.
Flight 8. Various Rieslings.
These were from Arrowood and Chateau St. Jean, and covered the vintages 1975-2009. The wines were from the vineyards Richard made famous with his Rieslings and Chardonnays of that era: Robert Young and Belle Terre, joined, later, by Hoot Owl and Saralee’s.
Tie for first:
1975 Chateau St. Jean Belle Terre Vineyards Johannisberg Riesling Individual Bunch Special Select Late Harvest (10.6%), and 1975 Chateau St. Jean Robert Young Vineyards Johannisberg Riesling Individual Bunch Special Select Late Harvest (10.0%). Score on both: 96. It is impossible to praise these very old white dessert wines enough. Possibly I scored them too low. In fact, the entire flight of eight wines was a masterpiece. It’s a pity people don’t drink more of these white late-harvest stickies, especially as they achieve the glories of senior citizenship.
For an extra treat, Richard invited a group of his former assistant winemakers over the years. They included Milla Handley (now Handley Cellars), Margo (Chateau St. Jean), her husband Don Van Staaveren (also from the old St. Jean days, now at Three Sticks), Heidi von der Mehden (Arrowood, now Merry Edwards) and, representing a younger generation, Erich Bradley (who was at Arrowood, and now is at Sojourn and Repris). Apologies to others who were present whose names I have not mentioned.
A prestigious gathering of distinguished winemakers
Richard and my former colleague, Virginie Boone, of Wine Enthusiast
Richard Arrowood surely will be inducted one of these days into the Vintners Hall of Fame!
I had a wine mentor who owned Chateau St. Jean “stickies” from the 1970s.
He shared them with me in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
They sold (if I recall correctly) in the upper teens for 375 ML bottles?
Comparatively expensive given that era of white dessert wines, but boy were they sublime.
Lamentably, they have been largely forgotten by the wine press and wine collectors as ageworthy wines that deserved a retrospective tasting.
Bravo to Dick and his team for their efforts.
(From a time in the mid-to-late 1970s when California was suffering a drought akin to today.)
You anyone wishes to savor a similar experience today, click on this link to Schaefer’s wine store outside of Chicago:
http://shop.schaefers.com/chateau-st–jean-johannisberg-riesling-individual-bunch-selected-late-harvest-be.html
See next comment . . .
On Dick Arrowood’s 1978 bottling:
From The New York Times
(February 3, 1982):
“[Headline Missing]
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/1982/02/03/garden/wine-talk-199006.html?pagewanted=print
By Terry Robards
“Wine Talk” Column