Today marks the return of Barlow Vineyards… with the release of their big, bold, delicious 2013 Calistoga Napa Valley Barrouge Cabernet Sauvignon. This wine is a young one, but with a little aeration, it is ready to imbibe. The patient among you will stash a few bottles away for the next decade or more. This wine will only keep getting better and better.

On the nose, fruit and spice and everything nice! Blackberry candy, raspberry, cassis, black licorice, cocoa dust, vanilla, toasty oak, spice and subtle black pepper. On the palate, young blackberry, black cherry, cherry bark, cocoa nibs, dusty bramble, cassis, hard leather, baker’s chocolate, spice box and subtle white pepper.

This wine hails from the Calistoga AVA, a sub-appellation of the Napa Valley AVA, situated at the northern end of the Napa Valley. The soils here are almost exclusively volcanic and the temperature swings are enormous, with 100 degree days cooled by the breezes that come off of the Russian River Valley AVA to the west. In fact, Calistoga enjoys the highest diurnal temperature variation in the entire Napa Valley - which places wonderful stress on the grapes that grow here - making for wines that are darker, richer and more flavorful.