Who would think that so many wine pros would sit so patiently through a 2-hour lecture on the Napa Valley and only taste two wines?

But these are not ordinary wines by any means.

CARDINALE is the darling of Jackson Family Wine Estates,

and no trouble or expense is spared to produce this monument to the valley itself, for it is blended from 17 different ultra-premium vineyard sites spread from one end of Napa to the other, though it’s fair to say most of these sites are at higher than usual altitudes, mostly clear of the night-time and early morning fog so typical of vineyards on the valley floor.

In an age where single-vineyard wines are widely regarded as leaders in the quest for the perfect glass, CARDINALE stands apart, eschewing the AVA classification system and instead blending wines from 17 legendary sites from all over Napa and in some years even from Sonoma.

This wine can’t have any of the usual marks of quality on the label, but must be content to rely on its iconic reputation.

 

 

In CARDINALE we taste the opposite of the Burgundian aesthetic that searches for the perfect expression of a perfect single row in one perfect vineyard.

Perfection is the goal here too, and CARDINALE is not entirely alone in this particular platonic tilt, though perhaps it’s not quite as extravagant when Concha y Toro blends from 25 different blocks of Cabernet Sauvignon to produce its ultra-premium Don Melchor, not so obvious because their site is nearly 1000 hectares, containing a variety of altitudes exposure and soils.

These superb, blended wines occupy the pinnacle of the blender’s art. They reach for the unattainable perfect balance that includes everything, excludes nothing.

Napa has a range of soil types like nowhere else on earth, and volcanic soils feature prominently.

The consummate winemaking and blending of Christopher Carpenter irons out all the Napa wrinkles to achieve a wine of superlative balance and elegance, wonderfully approachable even after just 7 years….

Thanks to Pierre Marie Pattieu MS, for speaking so eloquently to introduce the entire Napa Valley expressed in CARDINALE.