Winery Highlights ('05 Cabernet Sauvignon)

As a Congratulations you finished Cuisines of Asia to myself and a kickoff to my Thanksgiving break a friend and I went wine tasting. I noticed recently that I have accidentally formed a trend of creating a theme for my wine tasting experiences. This one happened to be the Rutherford Region and Weathers Effect on Wine Making.
Three Wineries were visited this day (all in the Rutherford region); Provenance, Sawyer Cellars, and Peju.

At Provenance we did a vertical tasting of Cabernet Sauvignon, meaning all the same varietal but of a different vintage year. There was an '05, '06, and '07. The '05 was the best cabernet I have ever tasted. It had a personality and a boldness, but was extremely smooth and  almost tannin less. It is a Cab I could see pairing with a piece of Salmon.

Sawyer Cellars,  We started by tasting many different varietals and were once again introduced to the '05 Cab. It again had very similar characteristics. We mentioned this to the wine educator and she poured us a '99 and a '00 to compare. I still enjoyed the '05 more. the '99 and '00 did not seem to be as smooth. Both very good, but I would choose the '05 any day.

Our day ended at Peju. This winery seemed to be more about the entertainment then the actual wine, but their grounds are beautiful and they also had an '05 cab that paralleled those we previously tasted.

What I gathered from speaking with all the different vineyards was that 2005 was such an excellent year do to the warm weather and little rain or heat spells.
At over $100 a bottle, free tastings of  this wine may be the thing to keep me in St. Helena.