Wine Advisor
Schrader, Old Sparky Beckstoffer To Kalon Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2006
Description
Tasting notes
Reviewed by: Robert M. Parker, Jr.
The flagship wine, the 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Beckstoffer To-Kalon Old Sparky, is another remarkable effort, offering up smoky blackberry and cassis fruit intermixed with notions of bouquet garni, roasted meats, creosote, and cedar. Tasting like a first-growth Pauillac from a very ripe, extravagantly rich vintage, this wine looks set to enjoy 25-30 or more years of longevity, as do all of these compelling Cabernets. As I wrote last year, this is a fascinating portfolio of 100% Cabernet Sauvignons all of them from Beckstoffer-owned vineyards, including the To-Kalon Vineyard in Oakville, and one wine from the George III Vineyard in Rutherford. All the wines are aged in 100% new French oak, usually a combination of Darnajou and Taransaud barrels, with a higher percentage of Darnajou used for the T6, CCS, Old Sparky, and Schrader. The different bottlings are essentially based on specific blocks and/or specific clones of Cabernet Sauvignon. In short, I think the 2006s are arguably the finest wines of the vintage, and the 2007s appear to be as profound. Given the fact that these wines seem to put on weight once they are in bottle, the 2007s may eclipse the extraordinary 2006s produced by Carol and Fred Schrader, and their brilliant winemaker, Thomas Brown. Total production of these cuvees is just over 1,500 cases, with the average for each offering 200-250 cases. Readers should keep in mind that all of these wines are aged in 100% new French oak for 20 months, bottled with no clarification, and possess alcohols ranging from 14.5% to 14.9%. This was one of the most exciting tastings I have done in 2008! Tel. (707) 942-1115; Fax (707) 942-2147
About the Producer
Chateau Shad insists on producing wine in the most natural way, advocating the reduction of human intervention to produce the purest wine. A few weeks before the harvest, the winery regularly arranges staff to test the sweetness of the grapes, and the grapes that meet the standard will be manually picked in the cool night or early morning. After harvest, the grapes are manually sorted and de-stemmed, before being cold-macerated in stainless steel tanks to extract the colour and tannins from the skins, a process that usually lasts a week. After the cold maceration, alcoholic fermentation takes place, in which yeast converts the sugars in the grapes into alcohol and carbon dioxide, which escapes from the top of the stainless steel tank during the process. Once fermentation is complete, the wine is put into small French oak barrels for aging. The Cabernet Sauvignon wines produced by Chateau Chad are concentrated in aroma, with aromas of black fruit and spice, full-bodied, firm tannins and a long finish. Since 2001, Shad Winery has received a total of 27 full marks from professional wine scoring agencies. Among them, the winery produced Schrader Cellars CCS Cabernet Sauvignon (Schrader Cellars CCS Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley, USA) and Schrader Cellars Old Sparky Cabernet Sauvignon (Schrader Cellars Old Sparky Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley, USA) has received a perfect score from the Robert Parker Team for the third year in a row, and the 2007 vintages were also awarded blind tastings by senior editor James A. A perfect score from James Laube, which further cements Chateau Chad's position as a producer of the world's finest Cabernet Sauvignon.