Fall 2006 Newsletter
"Getting the Concept"

Dear Friends,

With the release of the 2003 Cain Concept, I again have an opportunity to hone my reply to the obvious question: What is the Concept? Indeed, those of you who know Cain, know that the Cain Concept is an idea wine, an idea about a place. At the outset, it was an idea about what the Cain Five isn’t - which is to say, that our Cain Five is not a typical Napa Valley wine. From our mountaintop estate, we’ve always envied The Valley; with its fertile soils, gentle climate and ideal ripening conditions. We yearned to make a wine that would be more classically Napa Valley. This is not to say that we wanted to make a hedonist, oak-laden fruit-bomb—no, not that! We naturally seek harmony and complexity.

Once we got our hands on some of that Valley fruit, we began to realize that, while much of it can be disappointing or boring, the very best from the Napa Valley is amazingly good. Of course, others have known this for more than 100 years, since Gustave Niebaum purchased (in 1879) the already known Inglenook Estate in Rutherford, and since H. W. Crabb named his Oakville estate To Kalon in the 1880s.

After the first two vintages of our Concept, we gradually realized that what we prize the most grows on the benchlands of Oakville, Rutherford, and St. Helena. In fact, it is these favored sites that have given rise to the Cabernets that have so justly made the Napa Valley famous.

To be honest, I didn’t know what I was doing when I went to see Andy Beckstoffer in 1994. He had just purchased the BV #4 vineyard in Oakville - across Highway 29 from Opus One and next door to Robert Mondavi Winery. BV #4 was once part of the original To Kalon estate and sits in the heart of the Oakville bench. The vineyard needed to be replanted, but as the new vines matured we began to use this well-regarded fruit in our Concept.

Sometime later, we had the opportunity to work with some Cabernet grown in the heart of the Rutherford Bench. The wines produced were a revelation: dark, full, generous - powerful without being overbearing. To us, wines like this seem almost complete in themselves.

It was interesting to compare our wines with those of others, using similar fruit, often from right next door. In a time of picking later and later (a tendency of which we are also guilty), Cain will often be among the first to pick - the resulting wine will have more “high” notes on the nose, and the palate will feel more vibrant. But our vinification seeks judicious extraction - we get just what we want and leave the rest. We seek the development of vinous aromas in the fermentation so that the resulting wine will not be squarely centered on the fruit, as many wines these days unabashedly are. All of these subtle differences lead toward a wine that is more complex but also more subtle, which rewards the thoughtful wine drinker. In the process, we came to the realization that these benchlands truly are hallowed ground in the Napa Valley and that it was here that we wanted to center our Cain Concept.

For the core of our Cain Concept, Cabernet Sauvignon, we sourced and cultivated relationships with committed independent growers in the benchlands. The very best Cabernets from these vineyards reveal complexity; however, considering our tradition of making Cabernet blends, it would not be enough to bottle a pure Cabernet Sauvignon. To build toward more complexity, we use appropriate contributions grown in suitable locations from related varieties: Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and Petit Verdot.

Both the Merlot and the Cabernet Franc seem well suited to the cooler clay soils of Carneros. The Petit Verdot, on the other hand, needs heat and well-drained soils. With fruit like this playing the supporting roles to our benchland Cabernet Sauvignon, our Cain Concept is coming into focus. Those of you who have tasted our recent 2002 Cain Concept will know why we’ve been particularly gratified by this wine.

The 2003 should take our Cain Concept a step further. The primary differences that we see are the effects of the vintage. 2003 was a warm year, even warmer than 2002, and it was a year of moderate yields. The wines are correspondingly warm, full-bodied, round, and satisfying. Our 2003 Cain Concept is perfect for a winter evening: sumptuous, rich, heart warming.

You’ll see that our 2003 bottling has a very handsome new look, with a label beautifully created by our label designer, Chuck House. The words “Cain Concept” now float prominently over a symbolic topographic map of the benchlands.

A note on the benchland: The word benchland has been used in the Napa Valley for many decades. The best known of these is the famous Rutherford Bench, which seems to extend along the west side of the Valley from Oakville to Whitehall Lane, north of the town of Rutherford. The Bench forms at the foot of the Mayacamas Mountains at the outfall of a number of streams and creeks, which form a series of alluvial fans. During winter storms, the rocks, gravel, sand, and silt flow out of these creeks onto the valley, and the sediment is naturally graded by size. First, the coarsest material: the rocks and gravel drop out, then the sand, leaving the fine soils and clays to be carried into the center of the valley floor. The resultant bench gently falls from the foot of the mountains towards the center of the valley, as the soil becomes progressively deeper, wetter, richer, and more fertile. The benchland, with its coarser, more open soils, is not only well placed above the Valley floor, it is also better drained and less fertile. Here, the vines grow easily but are held in check. The grapes ripen consistently and reliably in each vintage. This is the hallmark of great terroir.

Christopher Howell

Winemaker/General Manager