Harpooned By A Latte
TASTING NOTES: “Aromas of cassis, mocha and spicy oak introduce this fullbodied Cabernet Sauvignon. Flavors are framed by black plum, toffee, and spice with a touch of dried green herbs. Vanilla notes and minerality harmonize with a rounded finish highlighted by toasted oak and blackberry fruit. Drink upon release or cellar up to ten more years. John and Jim Pedroncelli first planted Cabernet Sauvignon in 1965 making their mark in Dry Creek Valley. This was at the beginning of their six-decade business partnership which included many other milestones along the way. This wine blends brethren Bordeaux varieties and builds layers of striking flavors and character. The brothers have left an indelible mark on our family, our valley and the wine community.” (AbV 14.5%, pH 3.79)
VARIETALS: 89% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7% Cabernet Franc, 3% Petit Verdot, 1% Merlot
BARRELS: 12 months in French Oak barrels, 30% new oak
PAIRS WITH: N/A
THAT REMINDS ME OF: Mocha, one of the aromas in the tasting note, alongside cassis and spicy oak.
The word has a better résumé than the drink. It started as a port in Yemen, Al Mukha, which shipped so much coffee out of the Red Sea for so long that its name became shorthand for the stuff. Yemeni beans reportedly carried a natural chocolatey streak, so “mocha” ended up meaning coffee with chocolate in it, a flavor profile that now lives in a lot of whipped-cream-topped cups and, apparently, in this Cabernet.
But the mocha I’d rather talk about is a whale. Mocha Dick was a white sperm whale haunting the waters off Isla Mocha, an island off the coast of Chile, and by the 1830s he had a reputation for wrecking whaleboats and surviving a startling number of attempts on his life. Reportedly he swam around with a collection of old harpoons stuck in his back like the world’s worst pincushion. An explorer named Jeremiah Reynolds wrote him up in a magazine in 1839, and a young Herman Melville read it. So the most famous white whale in literature owes his existence, in part, to an island whose name is now mostly used to describe a latte. (I did not expect to end up here from a Cabernet either.)
PRODUCER PODCAST: Pedroncelli Brother’s Mark Cabernet Sauvignon (1:08)
