As far as Napa Valley wines go, Caymus Vineyards is a name that you just can’t escape from, with their bottlings having quite the reputation for their ripeness and richness, showcasing a distinct and unique style that the New World of Napa Valley has to offer.

The Ups and Downs of Napa Valley’s Winemaking History

As the ways of sophisticated winemaking started to gradually make its way across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe to America between the 17^th to 19^th century, Napa Valley began to earn its reputation for the cultivation and production of Cabernet Sauvignon wines, which today the region is well-renowned for.

The history of Napa Valley winemaking starts with a settler named George C. Yount, who established the first vineyard in Napa Valley around 1839. Several other early American settlers followed Yount’s lead, and Napa Valley’s first commercial winery was started by Charles Krug in 1861, following which a boom emerged, with around over 140 operational wineries in the region by 1889.

Unfortunately, not even the vineyards in the New World were immune to the devastation that phylloxera brought about, and as Napa Valley’s wine industry was about to enter the 20^th century, phylloxera wrecked damage across vineyards, destroying around 80 percent of the vines. The plague of phylloxera dragged on throughout 1900 to 1925, and it would take decades over decades for Napa Valley’s wine industry to rebound from this decimation. The situation was made worse with the introduction of Prohibition in 1920, which effectively crippled any of the remaining wineries that survived the phylloxera attack.

After decades of ruin and hardship, Napa Valley began to rebuild itself with the revival of several historic wineries such as Inglenook and Beaulieu Vineyards, the establishment of the Napa Valley Vintners trade association bringing wineries together, as well as through the work of enterprising American winemakers such as Robert Mondavi over the decades following the 1940s.

Napa Valley’s status as a serious contender on the international winemaking playing field was cemented at the Judgement of Paris in 1976, a wine blind tasting event held in Paris to celebrate the American Bicentennial. Wine lovers and critics across the world were blown away when a 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon vintage from Napa Valley’s Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars won the blind taste test for the red wine category, bringing home the highest honour and winning out other established Bordeaux wines from legendary estates with the likes of Chateau Mouton-Rothschild and Chateau Haut-Brion.

In 1981, Napa Valley was eventually assigned at the first American Viticultural Area (AVA), the country’s official appellation for winemakers. Today, the region is internationally renowned and beloved for its high quality wines and is now home to over 500 wineries.

The Terroir of Napa Valley

Cabernet Sauvignon is the star of the show when it comes to Napa Valley’s grapes varietals. With a climate and soil composition that is well-suited for premium quality Cabernet Sauvignon to flourish, it’s no wonder that it was a Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon that stole the show at the 1976 Judgement of Paris. Besides Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Merlot are also prominent throughout the region.

The Napa Valley is located towards the north of San Francisco, surrounded by the Vaca and Mayacamas Mountains with water from the San Pablo Bay running between the two mountainous regions, providing humidity to the area. The temperature of Napa Valley is predominantly warm, especially during the grape growing periods, while being chilled by the cool air that water from San Pablo Bay brings – allowing the region to provide an ideal climate for high quality grape varietals to flourish. On some evenings, fog forms from the San Pablo Bay and travels up throughout the valley, blanketing the vineyards and lowering the temperatures while also providing some shelter for the vineyards from the morning sun. Napa Valley offers a range of microclimates throughout the region with higher elevations on top of the hills, allowing for different growing cycles for a diverse range of grape varieties.

The soils of Napa Valley also offer an incredibly diverse geological makeup, comprising of a marine bedrock, sedimentary soils, and volcanic soils accumulated over 150 million years of crustal plate movements and geological activity affecting the region. Towards the mountains you can find soils that are thin and poorer in nutrients, forcing the vines to work extra hard to produce grapes with more tannins, giving them more structure and complexity. Further down from the mountains are vineyards with more alluvial soils, containing deposits from rocks, stones, and pebbles. As you move closer towards the river, you’ll find nutrient-rich soils dominant in clay and silt, producing grapes that are full of richness, ripeness, and fruitiness.

The combined geographical features and uniqueness all come together to make Napa Valley the ideal region for some of the most internationally recognized and sought-after wines to be produced.

Caymus Vineyards – A Family-Run Business That’s Distinctly Ripe

Located in the heart of Napa Valley in Rutherford, Caymus Vineyards was named after Rancho Caymus in Napa County, which was a Mexican land grant awarded to George C. Yount, located in present-day Yountville.  The winery was established in 1972 by the winemaking Wagner family’s Charlie Wagner, his wife Lorna Belle Glos, and their son Chuck Wagner when he was only 19 years old - notoriously Chuck was given two options by his parents, either stay in Napa Valley and start a winery with them, or sell it all and pursue new ventures in Australia. The Wagner family’s winemaking business dates back to the 19^th century, with Lorna Belle Glos’ ancestors being involve in viticulture and winemaking in the Napa Valley since 1858, and Charlie Wagner’s family producing wines and selling wines in the period before Prohibition came into effect in the United States, effectively shutting down their wine business. 

Over the decades, they had planted prunes, walnuts and of course grapes, and eventually as the wine business took off, their entire estate in Rutherford was turned solely to focusing on grape growing. This of course required particular expertise, and for that famed winemaker Randy Dunn was employed by the family in 1975, and who would stay until 1985, helping to cement Caymus' forte in Cabernet.

Before Caymus Vineyards, the Wagner family were highly regarded viticulturists growing grapes that were sold to other wineries such as Inglenook and Sonoma Vineyards, while also making their own home wines. The Wagner family eventually came to realize that the wines they were making for their own personal consumption at home were likely to make them quite a decent living, and so they established their own winery, Caymus Vineyards. The winery’s 1984 Caymus Special Selection Cabernet Sauvignon won Wine Spectator’s sought-after “Wine of the Year Award” in 1989, which they won again in 1994 for their 1990 vintage wine - the first and only winery in the world to do so!

Today, Chuck Wagner continues to run and manage Caymus Vineyards, and the Wagner family has expanded their portfolio of wineries including Conundrum and Mer Soleil – helmed by Chuck’s son Charlie Wagner Junior – as well as Emmolo, which is led by Jenny Wagner, Chuck’s daughter. Caymus Vineyards celebrated its 50^th anniversary with its 2022 Cabernet Sauvignon vintage bottling, and their famously ripe and rich wines continue to be among the most well-known Napa Valley labels today.

Cabernet Sauvignon is the predominant grape varietal planted throughout Caymus Vineyards on soils with lower fertility on the Napa Valley floors as well as on the higher elevation mountains that envelope the valley, the winery uses the Nathan Fay Cabernet Sauvignon clone which is the same clone used in the famed Stag's Leap Wine Cellars.

The winery’s distinct signature style of ripe Cabernet Sauvignon is a product of high-density planting in their vineyards, dry farming techniques, as well as harvesting at thinner yields at a higher degree of ripeness of their grapes - in particular the winery uses the hang time technique where fruit is left on the vine for longer than usual, allowing it to gain more ripeness, emphasising extending the ripening window for the fruit. These viticultural techniques, coupled with the warm climate of the valley results in grapes that produce immensely concentrated, ripe, and fruit-driven wines – a style that has become the hallmark of the winery. 

And with all that said, let's give Caymus' famous Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon a go!

Wine Review: Caymus Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2020

Today we’re having a go at Caymus Vineyards’ 2020 vintage of their Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, bottled at an alcohol content of 14.4%, made from none other than Cabernet Sauvignon grapes.

Tasting Notes

Colour: Deep Garnet

Aroma: Ripe, decadent aromas of cherry pie, plum confectionaries, blackberry jams and pop tart berry jelly filling, with a good heap of vanilla frosting. There’s some menthol and eucalyptus weaved in as well, with also some cedar. It’s fresh, juicy and jammy, with a big roundedness, leaning more confectionary.

Taste: Medium-bodied here, it’s really plush, with more on plum pie, black cherry jam, vanilla frosting, touches of chocolate sauce, and also some red liquorice. Again, it leans riper and rounder, with lots of richness, being more confectionary. The flavours are bold and thick, forgoing some of that otherwise structured and more chiselled, crystalline frame. More eucalyptus, it’s also a little waxy with some green bell peppers. It’s leaner on depth, yet really plush and satin-like, with a nice freshness. It features a good concentration and fullness and obviously leans more confectionary.

Finish: Some cough syrup comes through over here, with tobacco leaves and more cedar wood as well. Acidity of that black cherry as well. It begins to show some dryness here, with some burnt sugar lingering.

My Thoughts

True to its reputation, Caymus is a big, riper wine that leans more confectionary, delivering more decadence and opulence, with a fuller and rounder body. Yet, what impressed me was the freshness and the subtle nuances of herbal and earthy notes that are weaved in alongside the more confectionary fruit jams. It pulls back a little bit in terms of depth and structure, but it does deliver a wine that is a crowd-pleaser, and readily approachable and easy to get behind.

Till next time, happy sipping!

@ChopstickPride