Joseph Phelps – 2013 Sauvignon Blanc
Napa Valley - St. Helena, California
Retail: $32
Winemaker: Ashley Hepworth
We planned a trip to see our son attending Berkeley and threw in a couple days in Napa Valley. One of the places nearly everyone we talked to said was to visit Joseph Phelps Vineyards. The beckon call was to try the Insignia Cabernet Sauvignon. We scheduled an appointment at 10:30 am on a Sunday morning and had the place pretty much to ourselves. The tasting room was on the patio in between some temporary buildings. We didn’t mind much because it was absolutely perfect start of our day and it was nice to be outside enjoying the views. The old barn on top of the hill was under renovation and is now the tasting room. Go to their website and see the extensive woodwork, wonderful layout and great view. We knew we have to someday return, and we will. As we were novice wine drinkers, we adventured outside our comfort zone to try several premium wines. We liked them all! At the end of the visit, we chose to buy a bottle of 2013 Sauvignon Blanc because it was as I recall, it was clean, fresh and not a Chardonnay. I thought it is a wine that many of my friends would love to try. Frankly, the real reason my wife would say that the Sauvignon Blanc was that good despite being more expensive than what we ever spent on a white wine before, but was much less than the reds we were tasting.
So now jump forward two years to today. We are looking at our white wines that are aging and want to drink them while they are still “ready” and not “declining”. That would be a waste and we can’t have that. Hours before our Friday afternoon wine tasting, we were anxious to retry this wine. Will it live up to our memory or will it be better? My wife and I have different tastes and different wine description abilities but we reached the same conclusion once before, will we again? Well, lighting struck twice.
For the past two years we stored the wine in a cooler at 59 degrees. Using a proper wine glass for Sauvignon Blanc, we found the wine’s appearance to be a bright straw color. Holding up the glass with a white background and black text, the wine was transparently clear so that you could readily read the lettering in the background. We expect a Sauvignon Blanc to have a high degree of purity.
We both took in the primary aroma of the wine being a Sauvignon Blanc. We like to play the game of not disclosing the type of wine to see if the wine smells like the primary grape varietal. This wine being a Sauvignon Blanc, it is cleaner, crisper than a Chardonnay. The wine is has an excellent complex first aroma. As Napa Valley is a warmer climate it has a richer aroma and may be also likely due to aging the wine in 35% new French oak and the remaining in one to three year French oak puncheons (large oak casks) and barrels, the wine a touch of a toast aroma.
According to the Joseph Phelps website, the 2013 “shows bright Mandarin orange blossom, lemon curd, citrus and honey aromas. Full, ripe flavors of Meyer lemon, pear, honeydew melon and vanilla cream fill the mouth with a streak of minerality through to the nicely balanced long citrus finish.” The Wine Enthusiast reviewer Virginie Boone in February 2014 gave the wine a slightly different review by saying it is “(f)loral and exotic, the tingling acidity in this wine is the standout, but it’s equally buoyed by a mouth-filling texture adorned by a sensation of fresh-squeezed lime and grapefruit.” Our tasting of the wine yielded lemon, citrus and honey notes which is more in line with the winery’s notes (we did not know the winery’s notes until after we tasted the wine).
The mouth feel or weight of the wine was creamy and supple. The balance of the wine was unmistakenable and it has a complex structure to it with the different flavors. I look for the tears or legs of a wine on the inside surface of the glass that indicates the amount of alcohol in a wine. I judged the thin, quickly receding tears to mean a lower alcohol level but not at all close to being flat or flabby. The aftertaste was most pleasant and while not lingering, it was long enough to enjoy for almost 20 seconds which is quite good.
We tasted the wine by itself and then sampled it with two different pasta salads. One salad was a Mediterranean salad with Mozzarella cheese and the other an Italian pasta salad with vegetables. We think this 2013 Sauvignon Blanc is a perfectly wonderful “cocktail” wine that stands by itself and also can be a “food” wine. If you want to have food with it, the wine makes the food tastes better rather than the food making the wine taste better. You don’t have to worry about being hit by lighting twice to enjoy a great wine such this Sauvignon Blanc, it not only meet our first expectations, it went clear past them. It is extraordinary.
www.josephphelps.com
Food pairing: Salmon, tuna, trout, shellfish and most vegetarian. Fresh-tasting dishes with avocados, tomatoes, green onions, olives and sharp cheeses like feta. Avoid lemon flavored dressings and oils so as not to conflict with the wine.
Vineyard source: 100% estate-grown Sauvignon Blanc from Spring Valley Home Ranch Vineyard
Vineyard certification: Not applicable
Harvest dates: August 14, 2013 to August 29, 2013
Vintage notes: “Lower than normal rainfall paired with moderate spring weather brought with it early bud break and bloom. Sunny skies throughout the summer months led to earlier veraison and set the stage for an early harvest. Warm daytime and cool night temperatures leading up to harvest created evenly ripened fruit with ideal hang time throughout (their) estate vineyard”.
Yeast: Not disclosed
Fermentation: Not disclosed
Alcohol: 13.5
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