Personally Acknowledged By 1912
TASTING NOTES: “The Signature Cabernet Sauvignon has been our flagship wine for more than three decades. It is a benchmark for the long-lived hillside wines of the Napa Valley, full of structure and aging potential, yet seductively forward in its varietal character. The dry, rocky soils of Pritchard Hill produce small, intensely flavorful grapes. Crop thinning allows for full, even ripening and further elevates flavor complexity. Luxuriously dark and concentrated, this wine displays alluring aromas of black cherry, dark plum, roasted coffee and bittersweet chocolate, as well as notes of clove, fresh herbs and baking spices. On the palate, it is beautifully lush and layered, with bright, underlying energy and a robust mountain structure that frames generous flavors of boysenberry and cassis, with hints of violet, anise, cinnamon and sweet oak emerging throughout a long, dramatic finish.” (AbV 14.7%, pH 3.63, TA .59 g/100ml)
VARIETALS: 93% Cabernet Sauvignon, 4% Petit Verdot, 3% Merlot
BARRELS: Not specified.
PAIRS WITH: N/A
THAT REMINDS ME OF: Benchmark, as in the tasting note calling this Cabernet “a benchmark for the long-lived hillside wines of the Napa Valley.”
Before it meant “the standard everything else gets measured against,” a bench mark was a literal mark on a literal rock. Surveyors chiseled a horizontal notch into stone, a building corner, or a bridge abutment, and slotted an iron bracket into it. That bracket was the “bench,” and a leveling rod rested on it like a very small, very unglamorous park seat. Once the notch’s elevation above sea level was recorded, every measurement nearby could be tied back to it. The whole job of a benchmark was to sit there and not move, so that everything else could be compared against it.
I love that there are people who go hunting for them. Survey agencies keep records of where the marks were set, and hobbyists take those old datasheets, walk out to some street corner or hilltop, and try to find the actual brass disk (or the actual notch) that someone put there generations ago. Sometimes it’s right where the paperwork says. Sometimes it’s under a parking lot. I want to know about the person who found one on a church wall and felt, for a moment, personally acknowledged by a surveyor from 1912.
