WINEMAKER’S COMMENTS

This wine delivers everything we are looking for from a great vintage. The color is an inky purple hue and the wine has aromas of black fruits, baking spices, dark chocolate and leather. The palate is rich and complex, full of flavors of berry pie, mocha, cedar, black pepper and vanilla toast. The texture is creamy, round and full with well structured tannins that are approachable now or will cellar well for decades.

HARVEST

The 2012 harvest season came as a great blessing to us in Napa Valley. A calm and beautiful spring resulted in a large crop of fruit that ripened slowly and evenly through a near perfect season. Temperatures in the summer were consistent and warm, resulting in great fruit flavors in all varieties. As we approached fall, it was apparent this would be one of the largest crops we have seen in recent memory, with incredible quality. Harvesting of Cabernet began on September 20th with fruit from our estate vineyard in Stags Leap District. We continued at a calm and even pace until the end of October when the last fruit was brought into the winery. Fermentations quietly bubbled away in the cellar and we concluded harvest with the last pressing of fruit just days before Thanksgiving.

HISTORY

Clos Du Val, French for “small vineyard estate of a small valley,” was founded in 1972 in the renowned Stags Leap District by Franco-American vintner John Goelet. The winery was first recognized for its Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignons at the famed Judgment of Paris in 1976, establishing its place as one of Napa Valley’s most iconic winery estates. Still familyowned today, Clos Du Val farms 350 acres of estate vineyards in the Stags Leap District, Carneros and Yountville appellations. Focusing on this diverse palette of fruit, Winemaker Kristy Melton makes elegantly structured wines notable for their balance, complexity, and vivid fruit character.