Hundred Acre Ark Vineyard - 2019
Hundred Acre Ark Vineyard - 2019
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Grape Varietal: Cabernet Sauvignon
Country & Region: USA | Napa Valley
Alcohol Level (%): 15.5
Bottle Size: 750ml
Details
The single estate vineyard ARK is located just outside St. Helena, California at the base of Howell Mountain. It was originally planted in the 1880s, but was sadly lost to Prohibition. It took us five years to rebuild; she is our pride and joy.
The ARK is comprised of nine different blocks of Cabernet Sauvignon, planted meter by meter in nine different volcanic soil strata. The vineyard stretches through a sixty-million-year time sequence: three ancient beach fronts, a prehistoric weapons quarry, and spans a 180-degree arc of the sun over its half-mile length.
Winemaker notes
2016: This is an amazingly deep, rich, blueberry, blackberry and mulberry scented and flavored wine with skyscraper-like texture, remarkable intensity, great purity, and the new oak is completely concealed by the lavish and extravagant amounts of fruit. The 2016 stands out for its combination of power, purity, sweetness of fruit and tannin, lavish concentration and impeccable harmony.
2018
Wine Advocate 97: The 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon Ark Vineyard comes from a site on Howell Mountain that's planted in nine blocks, each of which is planted on two different rootstocks. Each parcel is picked, fermented and barreled separately, yielding at least 18 different lots from a vineyard that's only 15 acres in size. On the nose, it reveals a hint of mint, followed by deep, earthy loam notes and black fruit, all underscored by vanilla and cigar box. Full-bodied, plush and expansive, this generous, open wine finishes with serious length.
2019
Wine Advocate 99: The 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Ark Vineyard features beguiling scents of Montreal-style smoked meat backed by waves of black cherries and cassis. It's full-bodied, rich, plush and expansive on the palate, captivating for its mix of savory and fruity flavors. Offering tons of fun in the glass, this finishes long and tannic but also smoothly silky. It's a complete wine by any measure.
Lisa Perrotti-Brown 100: The 2019 Ark Vineyard is deep garnet-purple in color. It needs a swirl or two before it strolls out with notes of creme de cassis, black cherries, and mulberries leading to hints of crushed rocks, iron ore, and underbrush plus tapenade and lavender. The full-bodied palate is concentrated, with minerals, earth, and bags of black fruits, perfectly ripe, grainy tannins and seamless freshness, finishing long and earthy.
Decanter 100: An outstanding and profoundly layered 100% Cabernet Sauvignon from Jayson Woodbridge. I had hoped to include his Hundred Acre wines in my 2019 Napa Cabernet vintage report, but they weren’t available at the time. Had they been, they would have swept in for top honours. The reasons are many, and here, exhibited in this medium- to full-bodied Ark vineyard Cabernet are several exceptional reasons, which begin with complex aromatics of pure black cherry, blackberry, and blueberry skin, layered with nuances of cigar box, sandalwood, and vanillin. Finely-knit firm tannins build exemplary structure, balanced by crisp, blood-orange acid tension. It is a wine of very real intention to showcase the remarkable mineral superstructure beneath the ground of Ark, which is like a vertical layer cake of ancient beachfronts of red soils, black obsidian rock, and volcanic pebbles. ‘It’s a hundred million years of time sequences’, says Woodbridge, and the wine displays itself in equally complex layers of minerality, and the lingering effect is mesmerising and just draws you into the glass.
