Fall 2004

Dear Friends,

On the heels of a marvelous 2004 vintage (almost complete), we take great pleasure in presenting our newest offerings: 2001 Cain Concept and 2002 Cain Musqué. Both of these wines are some of the very best that we’ve ever made, and each one is a delight to taste. Of course, you must be the judge.

With the 2002 Cain Musqué comes both pleasure and sadness. Pleasure, because we feel that the 2002 represents some of our best work; sadness, because the 2002 will be our last vintage of Cain Musqué. We have worked with Doug Meador and his Ventana Vineyard since 1991, and the 2002 Cain Musqué shows everything that we have learned over that time. It was drawn from the lowest-yielding vines, whose golden clusters saw the most sun. Although not “ripe” by Napa Valley standards, it came in at slightly higher sugars than previous vintages (about 22 brix), and, more importantly, redolent of passion fruit, key lime, pink grapefruit, and the ever present white peaches. Well, even if you don’t get all of these notes in the wine, we still know you’ll be satisfied. Just 600 cases were bottled, and we did not increase the price. The wine is not for sale at the winery.

All the love and attention that we used to give to our Cain Musqué now goes to our red wines, and, in particular, our newest wine, the Cain Concept, on which we’ve been working since the first vintage (1997). With the glorious 2001 vintage, we can say that we’re finally “getting the Concept.” The idea has been to make a wine that is more classically Napa Valley than has been our somewhat idiosyncratic Cain Cuvée or our completely original Cain Five. We all recognize that, beyond the striking beauty of the Napa Valley—even more than all of the enthusiastic wine lovers who have come here, to grow grapes, to make wine, to taste and buy wine—more than all of this, it has been the consistent quality of the Cabernets of the Napa Valley that has kept the name “Napa Valley” firmly fixed to the map of the world of wine. For a very long time, there were just a few names—among them, Inglenook and Beaulieu—who made Rutherford justly famous for its Cabernets. Since then, many new waves of winegrowers have arrived, and still, Cabernet is the heart of the Napa Valley, and the heart of Cabernet can be fairly said to run from Oakville through Rutherford to St. Helena, along the edges of the valley, on the alluvial terraces that line the sides of the valley—the fabled “Benchlands” of the Napa Valley. It is from this area that we draw the core of our Cain Concept.

Some of those who have tasted the 2001 Cain Concept tell us that they can smell and taste its “Rutherford Dust” origins. While, if true, that is certainly gratifying, what we do know is that these wines, possessors of dark color, plump, ripe fruit, full body, and supple tannins, just about make themselves. The fruit is generous in nature, and so too are the wines. Bottled in the summer of 2003, the wine was aged for more than 12 months in the bottle before it was offered for sale this fall. Our 2001 Cain Concept tastes great now, and it will continue to do so for the next few years—we also expect that the wine will age gracefully, and it may near its peak as an old wine somewhere between 10 and 15 years of age.

I’ve been told not to say that the price of the 2001 Cain Concept is “absurdly low”—that’s just my opinion. The truth is that we’ve all had more than we need of over-priced wines that under-deliver and many of which have no track record. Our strategy with the Cain Concept has been to counter this trend by consciously and substantially under pricing the wine during its introduction—which is to your advantage!

Yours truly,
Christopher Howell
Winemaker/General Manager