2014 Promontory, Napa Valley, California, USA

Promontory

Owned by the Harlan family of Harlan Estate, Promontory lies on one of the unique sites in Oakville and represents the next step in Bill Harlan’s plan to establish a wine dynasty in California. Its wines are some of the most sought-after in the world and perfectly represent the power and potential of Napa Valley.

Bill Harlan first stumbled across this land in the 1980s. While its rare metamorphic soils held immense promise, the land had been decimated; the soils were essentially destroyed and robbed of their organic matter.

A regeneration process is still in place at Promontory. Vines are largely untrellised; plots are scattered around the farm and are less domesticated than in many US estates. This gives the Promontory team an astounding range of microclimates and aspects, each imparting a distinct, raw sense of place to the resulting wines.

The team at Promontory employs unusual techniques to coax the best out of their high-altitude vines; vineyards are “mixed pace”, and each vine is allowed to develop at its rate. They also employ “dry farming”, an incredibly rare choice that avoids irrigating crops during a dry season. In this way, they ensure a greater concentration of fruit in their wines and future-proof themselves for summers when water will be in increasingly scarce supply.

Oakville

Oakville is a renowned wine region in the heart of Napa Valley, California, USA. It is considered one of the premier appellations for producing high-quality Cabernet Sauvignon wines. The favourable climate, diverse soil types, and skilled winemaking practices have contributed to Oakville’s reputation as a top wine-producing area.

The primary grape variety is Cabernet Sauvignon, which thrives in the region’s warm climate and well-drained soils. However, you can also find other Bordeaux varietals such as Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, and Malbec, as well as some white wine grapes like Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc.

Oakville benefits from a Mediterranean climate with warm, sunny days and cool nights. The region’s proximity to San Pablo Bay allows for morning fog, which provides natural cooling, making it ideal for slow grape ripening and flavour development.

The diverse soils add to the complexity of the wines produced. The region features a mix of volcanic, alluvial, and sedimentary soils that offer distinct characteristics to the grapes. The Napa River runs through the area, further enriching the soils with sediment deposits.

Oakville is home to some of the most prestigious and iconic wineries in Napa Valley. Prominent names like Robert Mondavi Winery, Opus One, Far Niente, Screaming Eagle, and Harlan Estate have put Oakville on the world wine map.

Winemakers in Oakville employ various traditional and modern winemaking techniques to ensure the highest quality wines. Careful grape selection, hand harvesting, small-lot fermentations, oak barrel aging, and blending are standard practices used to craft complex and balanced wines.

In recognition of the unique terroir and distinct characteristics of the wines produced, Oakville was designated as an American Viticultural Area (AVA) in 1993. This official appellation status further solidifies the region’s significance in the wine industry.

Cabernet Sauvignon

The most famous red wine grape in the world and one of the most widely planted.

It is adaptable to a wide range of soils, although it performs particularly well on well-drained, low-fertile soils. It has small, dusty, black-blue berries with thick skins that produce deeply coloured, full-bodied wines with notable tannins. Its spiritual home is the Médoc and Graves regions of Bordeaux where it thrives on the well-drained gravel-rich soils producing tannic wines with piercing blackcurrant fruits that develop complex cedarwood and cigar box nuances when fully mature.

The grape is widely planted in California where Cabernet Sauvignon based wines are distinguished by their rich mixture of cassis, mint, eucalyptus and vanilla oak. It is planted across Australia and with particular success in Coonawarra where it is suited to the famed Terra Rossa soil. In Italy barrique aged Cabernet Sauvignon is a key component in Super Tuscans such as Tignanello and Sassicaia, either on its own or as part of a blend with Sangiovese.