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They Call It Money Road
They call it Money Road for good reason. This is Oakville's rocky Rodeo Drive. Just to the west are Opus One and Far Niente. To the east, just on the other side of the Trail, you'll find mailboxes imprinted with names like Plumpjack, Dalla Valle, Rudd and Peter Michael's Showket. Just next door is Groth Reserve -- home of Robert Parker's first American 100pt. Cabernet Sauvignon.
After a 2006 vintage rife with challenges, the most ingenious winemakers in Napa Valley were treated to a near-perfect growing season punctuated by a glorious 2007 Indian summer. The Oakville All-Stars had a field day, putting out voluptuous wild blackberry infused Cabernets so rich and opulent on release that many overlooked the superb, fine tannin backbones looming in the backdrop.
Wine Spectator came out first, calling the vintage a "textbook growing year; small crop, ideal ripening, with scores of amazing wines defined by enormous complexity and plush tannins," before rating the harvest a terrifically age-worthy 97 points.
The Wine Advocate piled on with Parker writing "this is by far the greatest vintage since 2001 and 2002." His 96pt vintage score would be the highest of the decade.
By late 2010, almost every drop of 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon from the big names off of Money Road had vanished in a global buying spree that would whisk fiscal storm clouds away from Napa Valley. By mid-2011, we learned that just one estate -- a mere 9.2 acres adjacent to Groth, planted in the early 1990s with Groth Reserve bud wood -- had yet to release its 2007 Estate Grown Cabernet Sauvignon. It wouldn't take us long to figure out which winemaker's signature was on the back label.
Iron Fist. Velvet Glove. Nils Venge had just finished making one of the most monumental Cabernets of its time, the 1974 Villa Mount Eden, when he took a chance on a patch of land just down the road from the Oakville Grocery. The topsoil was clay and loam, the substratum rocky. Drainage was excellent. Late in 1976, they pulled the trigger on 9.2 acres, naming it Saddleback Cellars. It would be one of the more prescient purchases in Oakville history.
By the early 1980s, Venge's stock was sky high. The 1978 Villa Mount Eden had already outdistanced the legendary 1974. It was about this time that we first met the tall, good-natured winemaker at a winemaker dinner in the city. Nils's oh-shucks demeanor disguised an uncanny nose for deep, dark, briary, fantastically structured Cabernet Sauvignon, something that wasn't lost on his new Oakville neighbor, Dennis Groth. Groth wasted no time in luring Venge away from Villa Mt. Eden. A few years later, Nils authored Robert Parker's first Napa Valley 100-pointer, the 1985 Groth Reserve.
For those of us who have been collecting Nils Venge's Saddleback Cellar Cabernet Sauvignons over the last couple of decades, we keep coming back for the rare combination of deep, dark concentration, and age-worthy backbone -- the classic iron fist in a velvet glove. Venge, unlike many in the valley, leaves his Cabernets in barrel for two years, then lets them rest another year and a half in bottle before release. Saddleback Cabernets shouldn't be paired with a single dish. Instead they're the subjects of entire evenings. We decanted the 2003 for two hours before serving it several weeks ago. In what many call a 'difficult vintage,' Nils's '03 hit its stride when the braised lamb shank was served, and was just coming into its own when we broke out the farm Comte.
As to this just released 2007 -- the last of the Oakville All-Stars -- it's an absolute blockbuster from the guy Parker says has the "Midas Touch" with Cabernet Sauvignon. Deep purple/black in color, with lavish aromas of crushed blackberries and wild blueberries, tinged with new wood cedar. The attack is massive -- profound, dense and briary -- with tremendous chewy, black fruit concentration, all buttressed by the sumptuous tannins that speak so powerfully of the monumental vintage … and of Money Road.
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Tasting Notes
2007 Saddleback Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville Napa Valley
"The 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon appears to be one of the finest Saddleback Cellars Cabernets yet produced. This cuvee may last 15 or more years given Venge's Midas touch with this varietal. Dense cassis fruit intermixed with chocolate, spicy oak, and licorice are found in this full-bodied wine that shows good purity and depth. This big wine is normally very realistically priced."
90-93 points -- Robert Parker's The Wine Advocate
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