This was one of the first few bottles I bought when I found Hawkes, next door to the Jimtown Store in Alexander Valley.
They do Cab and Chard only, and a very nice job with both.
The '04 Cab. which included fruit from other producers (the family has been farming and selling fruit for over 30 years), was a "Sonoma County Even Years" wine, a bit tannic and a bit slow to open.
(For the last decade or two, there's been a local weather pattern whereby odd-numbered years have lush, early ripening, high volume fruit and even years aren't quite so voluminous. The folks I know who grow and sell wine like the odd years better than the even years. I think the even years make better wine, though it usually takes a couple of years or half a decade longer to show why.)
This was an even-year wine. On opening, it was almost watery - no nose to speak of at all, and the distinct bitter tannin of tannic fruit rather than oak. But, there was the Cab-ness with its leaves and stems and earth, and a lot of swirling and mouth-aeration did tell me there wasn't anything wrong.
I was glad I'd opened it an hour ahead.
I poured a couple of ounces and went ahead with starting the charcoal and preparing the mushroom and red wine sauce for the T-bone.
Sipping as I worked, I found fresh herbs like the thyme I was putting into the sauce, and more and more red-berry flavor.
When I sat down to steak with red wine and shiitake sauce, baked potato and green salad, and poured the glass to enjoy with dinner, I found the steak had met its match. I was swigging the wine! Not because it was bad, because it was so smooth and so rich!
In the end, I finished the first glass and had another pour, and that's unusual for me. (The steak was good, too, and it was full pound.)
When I finish the bottle, that'll be it. No more in the stash. (I do have later vintages.)
Alexander Valley, Hawkes, Cab. Sauv. 2004 $40.00, 14.3% alcohol Bought at the winery 1/09
John