1996 Heitz Cellar "Martha's Vineyard" Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon

Notes

Heitz Cellar has earned its reputation as one of the Napa Valley's best producers by making quality, ageworthy wines for decades. Stephen Brook: "Joe Heitz was not a man to move with the times. He tank-fermented his Chardonnay and blocked malolactic fermentation. He stayed loyal to the Grignolino rosé he had made as a young man, and he even made a Port-style wine from the variety. He aged his Cabernet, and some of the Chardonnay in Limousin oak - a practice that is continued to this day. He bought Limousin barrels because he disliked American oak, and the range of French oak in the 1960s was limited. I once asked Joe Heitz why he had stuck to a wood that most winemakers disliked, and he replied, 'In the beginning, we used what we had and it worked. Why should we change just because other people are sheep?' Joe Heitz was no diplomat." (The Finest Wines of California: A Regional Guide to the Best Producers and Their Wines, pg. 152-3) The 1996 was the first vintage bottled from Martha's Vineyards exclusively, after a replanting made necessary by the 1990s phylloxera redux.