17 year old Gallo

• 1994 Ernest & Julio Gallo Cabernet Sauvignon Single Vineyard Frei Ranch - USA, California, Sonoma County, Dry Creek Valley (3/8/2012)
  This was from when Gallo set out to show that they could make excellent wine in addition to potable high quantity value wines. I'd been keeping it as a brown bag surprise, but the opportunity never came up since we never do Cabernet tastings.
  So instead it was an open label midweek dinner wine with grilled steak.
  And shockingly good. Lots of very attractive fruit, cassis and a bit of brambly character. A hint of mint. Nice balance.Tannins mainly resolved.
  In the unlikely event that you have any, drinking well but no hurry.

Charles

Nice! Gallo!

Hmmmm....not too surprised on this, Charles. I recall this wine being awfully good back in its day. Like many of us....
its day has not come & gone quite yet. Gallo can actually make some really good wines when they set
their mind to it. I'll see some on the shelf at CortiBros in Sacramento from time to time and Darrell will always
insist I try one...."It's really quite good" he'll tell me as he sticks a btl into my shopping cart.
Tom

Hmmmm....not too surprised on this, Charles. I recall this wine being awfully good back in its day. Like many of us....
its day has not come & gone quite yet. Gallo can actually make some really good wines when they set
their mind to it. I'll see some on the shelf at CortiBros in Sacramento from time to time and Darrell will always
insist I try one...."It's really quite good" he'll tell me as he sticks a btl into my shopping cart.
Tom

Well Tom, I knew it was good, and that's why my intention had been to slip it into a tasting blind. What surprised me is that it was still quite youthful, having held up better than me. Of course, I can't speak for how well you have held up, even though you undoubtedly have followed Gallo from the start.
Charles

Thanks for the note. 1994 was the widely available vintage of CA Cabernet that was on the shelves when I turned 21, so I bought up a bunch of them (and subsequently drank them all up too soon. Hell, I didn't know what I was doing!) But since revisiting it on later occasions, I've gotta say that I generally love that vintage -My high point being Ridge MB. I pretty much stopped buying and drinking CA Cabernet after the '96 vintage as I was going through a Rhone-stage by then for reds (and had also abandoned CA Chardonnay and Pouilly-Fuisse for German Riesling come to think of it), but I'd love to revisit some of those wines today. I have never given up on well-aged CA Cabernet from the 70s-mid 90s though I hardly ever drink them except from the cellars of friends, none of which live in Germany. For the sake of nostalgia, how have the 94s held up in general?

Thanks,
Bill

even though you undoubtedly have followed Gallo from the start.
Charles

That's good! Tom's not THAT old, is he?

• 1994 Ernest & Julio Gallo Cabernet Sauvignon Single Vineyard Frei Ranch - USA, California, Sonoma County, Dry Creek Valley (3/8/2012)
  This was from when Gallo set out to show that they could make excellent wine in addition to potable high quantity value wines. I'd been keeping it as a brown bag surprise, but the opportunity never came up since we never do Cabernet tastings.
  So instead it was an open label midweek dinner wine with grilled steak.
  And shockingly good. Lots of very attractive fruit, cassis and a bit of brambly character. A hint of mint. Nice balance.Tannins mainly resolved.
  In the unlikely event that you have any, drinking well but no hurry.

Charles

Back in the 80's & 90's California Cabernet was my favorite wine. I still have quite a bit of it in my cellar, having been well stored, the higher line stuff is pretty consistently impressive. It's the less expensive bottles that really amaze me, so many of them have aged beautifully!

There were some really fine bottles flying under the radar back then! I used to buy a lot of wine for instance from Windsor Vineyards. Quiet reasonable for some very nice wine, in fact, for a number of years in the 80's Windsor was owned by Rodney Strong and the Winemaker was Rick Sayre, the man was, and is, a pretty good winemaker!
Their mid level to top level Cabs, such as the River West bottling and Winemakers Signature Reserve are still drinking fabulously. Today similarly priced (comparatively of course) Cali Cabs are usually fruit bombs with lots of alcohol that lack the structure to age.

Think I'll have an old River West vertical tasting and reminisce!