WTN: Caymus Vertical

[Jenise]

A generous friend who buys Caymus every year hosted a lovely dinner party last night to taste through some of his older bottles.

Flite One:

1991 Caymus: Perfumed beauty, dried cherry, smoke, leather, resolved tannins. Lovely example of aged California cabernet and the largest votegetter for WOTN, but it won't get better from here. Drink up!
1992 Caymus: Quite a bit more youthful than the '91 in color--would guess at least five years difference between this and the '91--flavor and mouthfeel with more cassis and more evident tannins. Excellent, and will hold here nicely for years to come.

Flite Two:

1994 Caymus: Huge, expansive fruit, plush and supple with soft tannins. The host's favorite of the two but most of us preferrred the '95.
1995 Caymus: Sweeter fruit with more intensity, some blackberry notes, good French oak spice. Outstanding. My WOTN.

Flite Three:

1996 Caymus: Black cherry and plum fruit with a leafy nose and a bit of celery on the palate. Entirely pleasant to drink and far from being a dog, but it faded a bit in the glass and is probably already past peak.

1997 Caymus: Plum, black currant, dill and a bit of coconut. Hot and ballsy, extracted. Would think this saw American oak, but my understanding is that Chuck uses only French. My least favorite of the night.

1998 Caymus: Vibrant and firm, youthful, balanced and sporting a very complete suite of cabernet flavors and textures, all good. It won the flite for me easily. This has a very bright future.

[David M. Bueker]

Caymus - a really nice wine that got priced beyond what I was willing to spend. I recall drinking a bunch of the '94 when it came out, and paying no more than $40. Then the '95 came out at $65 and I never looked back.

+1 re what Daivd said..I too bowed out after the 94 Caymus..Stil have a bunch of the 92 in the cellar..and I think one bottle of the 91..94 was also my last vintage re Dominus and Mondavi Reserve.

+2! The 1991 vintage was around the turning point where I stopped paying attention to CA Cabernet. I recall buying several bottles of the 1990 Caymus CS for $15.99 and then the price began to skyrocket. On the bright side, it lead to my exploration of interesting alternatives.

One of my favorite wine-related memories is tasting with Charles Wagner back when I was 22-23 and being absolutely intimidated by his grizzled presence. I used to buy Caymus Estate Cab (never the SS) regularly up until the '92 or '93 vintage, but then pricing became silly and then a generational change ushered in a stylistic shift. Jean got me the '98 Estate Cab, but other than that I haven't had one in decades.

Mark Lipton

[Jenise]

Caymus has a special place in my heart, too. Six bottles of the '89 was my first major wine purchase, the flagbearer for my conversion from casual wine drinker to budding afficianado with the intentions of building a cellar. I bought it every year thru '93 and then, like the rest of you, moved on when the pricing went nuts. Interesting to reflect on the real numbers David cites--I'd completely forgotten--and note that the wine sells today for about the same price as that '94.

Since then I've completely lost touch with the newer vintages; I don't buy. Been curious of course to taste, but not enough to sway me from the wines I've since developed a preference for. $60 buys a lot in Bordeaux and Burgunday these days.

Ditto all other posters,

I stopped drinking/buying in the early to mid-nineties. Before then, the regular bottling had been a real deal and a treat; I thought it was kind of like a St. Julien (or a St. Bernard): chunky, but heart warming.
My question concerns not the shift in price, but the shift in style. I've recently had the Caymus (regular bottling) in tastings (and own now one '08). It had a heavy taste of blueberries (not blackberries) and vanilla (from the oak), neither of which I like. What happened? Is it a fad; do all the interesting grapes now go in the special select? Does anyone know?

Josh

Ditto all other posters,

I stopped drinking/buying in the early to mid-nineties. Before then, the regular bottling had been a real deal and a treat; I thought it was kind of like a St. Julien (or a St. Bernard): chunky, but heart warming.
My question concerns not the shift in price, but the shift in style. I've recently had the Caymus (regular bottling) in tastings (and own now one '08). It had a heavy taste of blueberries (not blackberries) and vanilla (from the oak), neither of which I like. What happened? Is it a fad; do all the interesting grapes now go in the special select? Does anyone know?

California wines in general underwent a stylistic shift in the mid-'90s, presumably in response to the praise heaped on the early pioneers (Turley, Martinelli, Beringer) of the "more is more" school of winemaking. Add to that the generational change at Caymus, when Charlie Wagner -- a crusty, old school farmer turned winemaker -- retired and passed on the reins to his son Chuck, who seemed to favor more oak and less structure in his wines. The rest is history.

Mark Lipton