2013 Winery of the Year!
V. Sattui Winery, Napa Valley, CA
The fourth annual International Winemaker Challenge attracted more than 800 entries from 12 countries in San Diego, CA earlier this month. V. Sattui Winery, a Napa Valley producer that also is no stranger to the winner's circle, was named Winery of the Year for the third year in a row after scoring 30 medals overall. It wasn't the sheer volume of honors that V. Sattui collected that impressed so much as the quality of the awards: Of the 30 medal-winning wines, two were platinum and participated in the championship round of voting that decided Wine of the Year. One of the platinums, the just-released 2009 Paradiso (Bordeaux-style red blend), finished as Best of Class for Red Wines. Then there were 9 gold-medal wines in addition to the two platinum-medal wines.
Browse our selection of medal-winning current releases below!
The grapes for this wine come from Preston Vineyard located in the Rutherford Appellation, an area where some of the finest Cabernet Sauvignon in Napa Valley is grown. The region is known for its gravelly soils which produce rich and opulent red wines with fine-grained tannins and incredible complexity.
The 35th Anniversary is a fruit-forward Zin, with abundant berry and spice aromas, medium tannins and a sweet, jammy finish. Its aromatic wild-berry character makes it a wonderful complement to spicy chicken and lamb dishes or old-fashioned, slow-cooked, barbequed ribs
Many people at first wondered why we planted several acres of Merlot in our cool Carneros Henry Ranch vineyard, an area proven for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay (which we also planted.)
Vittorio’s Vineyard, about thirty acres adjacent to the winery on the south side, is planted about half to Cabernet Sauvignon. The soils are gravelly loam and marginally fertile, which stresses the vines and produces excellent quality grapes. The vineyard enjoys a microclimate that is perfectly suited to Cabernet and the four other varieties (Merlot, Petit Verdot, Syrah & Zinfandel) planted there.
OLD-VINE ZINFANDEL
Quaglia Vineyard is actually two separate vineyards here in St. Helena, about a mile apart. One parcel is on Spring Street on the west side of town; the other is on Pratt Avenue, just north of town. Both have been in the Quaglia family for more than seventy years and both sport beautiful and gnarly old head-pruned vines, some over eighty years old.
**NEW VINTAGE**
The ‘09 Napa Valley Cabernet is a perfect example of concentration and intensity. Dark, brooding and inky, this blend of Cabernets from Stagecoach, Henry, Preston and Vittorio’s Vineyards—along with 3% Petit Verdot —even at 3½ years old, is still coming out of its barrel-bound slumber. The aromas of black fruits are clearly there in the nose, promising richer rewards with additional aging. The ripe fruit flavors are simmering under a blanket of moderate tannins from 18 months in new French oak.
Fingers of Pacific fog follow the Russian River inland, cooling its watershed ahead of the surrounding terrain and making the area markedly cooler. This appellation, already well-revered for its Pinot Noirs, has been very consistent with producing well-bred and extracted Zinfandels.
Carneros has been called the Burgundy of California because the two Burgundian grape varieties—Chardonnay and Pinot Noir—achieve exquisite flavors in this region.
From the Dry Creek Valley renowned for world-class Zinfandels. This Zinfandel is solidly built, yet shows remarkable constraint and a slight edge of spiciness.
NEW VINTAGE
(Proprietary Bordeaux Blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Petit Verdot)
“Powerful, Elegant and Expressive”
