Two Jakes Cabernet Sauvignon by Clark Smith (4)

Two Jakes Cabernet Sauvignon by Clark Smith (4)
Sold by: Winston Winery
$69.99 $140.00 50% off List Price
2012 Two Jakes Cabernet Sauvignon, Lake County

Over the past few years Clark has become an auto-buy.
Look forward to trying these.

This wine, just released is the first ever Two Jakes Cab Sauv woot offer ever. This is a little weird, since 2/3rds of the 200-acre vineyard is a fifteen clone library of Cabernet Sauvignon, each completely different in flavor and growing habit. Clone 15 is my favorite, bursting with generous black cherry aromas and dense but refined tannins.

Diamond Ridge’s high altitude volcanic soils are ideal to produce wines of intense flavor, color, structure and mineral energy, while its cooling afternoon lake effect preserves, resulting in Cabernet Sauvignon that is luscious in youth yet last decades in the cellar.

I have made some enigmatic wines, I know, but you won’t be scratching your head about this one. This is one of the most easily likeable Cabs I’ve ever made.

I don’t know if that’s good or not. I tend to make fairly austere wines that benefit from age, so I’m not used to wines that are this delicious at this tender age, but I do believe there’s no reason to imagine that this wonder won’t go a decade or two. It’s extremely fruity, but will undoubtedly develop a lot of dimensionality over time, if you can resist it that long.

still deciphering the Roman Reserve TwoJakes Cab Franc (mystery box) tried today with 12 hour decant – still cannot put its uniqueness in words (okay mineral for sure and?? different) Now a chance at a 1st offering 2Jakes Cab Franc like all your wines an auto buy – peace out

Another wine form Clark to try…this makes it hard to stay on budget! Most likely in for 1…need to think on it.

Fixed that for ya.

BTW, Clark or anyone, are we to have Rats/Debaters/tasters for this offer?

Interesting stats…relatively high pH and harvest brix. What’s the TA? Why the watering down of the must? Were the grapes raisined on harvest?

I’m wondering that, too. We gave woot three bottles to send out to lab rats, so I’m hoping to hear some comments.

We pushed up the release of this a month because we’ve determined that we can’t profitably woot the much-anticipated Roman Reserve Cab Franc. Despite my best efforts to work it out, we are restricting sales on that to the winery.

As a result, I didn’t have time to line up reviews of this Cab Sauv as I normally would. I reckon you may need to take my word for it. Fortunately, this is not an enigmatic wine like the RR CF, but rather extremely affable and hard-to-hate.

Excellent inquiries. Let me take them one at a time.

To begin with, nobody except the ivory tower types at Davis thinks 3.83 is a high pH for high tannin wines like high altitude Cabernet Sauvignon. Please check out my discussion of Winemaking at High pHon the Vinovation.com website, which is full of technical winemaking information.

The TA on this wine is 5.1 gm/L, admirably low. In short, high TA is bad for red wine texture because it brings more saliva into the mouth to neutralize the acid. This is good for white wine, which has low tannin, but bad for reds because saliva contains proteins that bind to tannins and cause a coarse mouthfeel. Moderately high pH is also beneficial for red wine because it accelerates aging and also increases the wine’s ability to react with oxygen and protect itself.

Concerning rehydrating musts, we have a problem in California that our air is too dry, so water evaporates from our grapes and maturity happens at too high a brix in some hot, dry years.

Paradoxically, watering the must increases concentration. This is because color and tannin aren’t soluble, so they have to be extracted into copigmentation colloids, which are unstable at high alcohol. Alcohol destroys the colloids, which is why high alcohol wines generally have lousy color unless something else is blended in.

So, yes, there is some desiccation, but raisining is something I avoid like the plague. That involves polymerization and field oxidation, which robs me of the opportunity to build a proper structure in the winery with micro-oxygenation. It’s the same problem as a chef would have trying to make a soufflé if the eggs come in already scrambled.
So yes, some desiccation is reversed by water addition, but no, no raisining.


Lab rat report:
The person who wrote the label description deserves a medal as much as Jake & Jake deserve a medal for the wine. Smooth black cherry with a chocolate finish and really well balanced tannins. #truth
I opened this as soon as it arrived and wasn’t overly impressed with the first sip. We used an aerator to pour (it was a weeknight, who has time to decant?) and that made all the difference. It really opened up.
Side note: I did not have a residual wine headache. The label says that it contains sulfites, but as someone who is often sensitive, I had no issues with this one.
Take the time to decant or use an aerator and enjoy!

This minerality thing is an area of great interest to me, the subject of a whole chapter in Postmodern Winemaking

What I am talking about isn’t the wet stone aromatic for which the term is sometimes employed, but rather an energetic buzz in the finish similar to acidity.

We don’t know what it is. It seems to be associated with organic practices and with certain soils such as limestone, schist, slate and decomposed granite. The volcanic soils at Diamond Ridge import this character to all of Jake’s wines, and this Cab Sauv is no exception.

Whatever it is, the palate energy seems to bestow amazing longevity. These wines last a lot longer than it seems like they should, and keep well after opening.

Whatever

Thank you, kind Rat. Your decanting suggestion is always a good idea with Diamond Ridge wines. Their minerality is a double-edged virtue. It bestows ageworthiness, but at the cost that the wines need coaxing in youth (in this case, a mere four years of age).

I’ve often observed that wines are like baseball. Pop flies don’t go over the fence. The trajectory of a home run is pretty flat. To ask a wine to be delicious now and built to last is an attempt to defy gravity.

I try my best with careful introduction of enological oxygenation to do just that, and I think I succeeded here pretty well, but the flavors don’t come jumping out of the bottle.

Was saving my money for the Cab Franc. So is there any way we can get a bottle or two of the Franc if not through woot?

Hesitated to read the comments knowing Clark would make this wine sound awesome. Was not wrong. Probably will be going in on this as my wife and I love your wines.

Hi Clark, thanks for another intriguing offer! Is there any Clone 6 in that vineyard?

Also, PM for you…

Norton anti-virus is suddenly telling me that woot login page has been blocked because it is a known security threat. Obviously I logged in anyways :stuck_out_tongue:

Anyone seen this before?

The Roman Reserve Cab Franc is a different kettle of fish both stylistically and price-wise, and will only be available direct from the winery. It’s a special occasion wine. Give us a call at 707-332-0056 and we can tell you about the special we’re going to run.

This Cab Sauv is priced and styled for everyday drinking. Different part of the budget, wouldn’t you say?

Sure, we have Clone 6, and I really like its flavors: dense cassis and rich, oily tannins. The problem is economics. It has really small berries and not many on a cluster, so its not very economical to grow. Clone 15 is richer, denser, has more depth of fruit (more black cherry than cassis) and gives twice the crop.

Jeez, it’s always sumpin’.

Almost forgot to embed this video:
[youtube=3cBA3lexGpg][/youtube]