info@buyersandcellars.ca
www.buyersandcellars.ca Cellar Profile
Founded in 2011, Senses quickly became one of the most exciting wine projects out of the Sonoma Coast. Occidental natives and childhood friends, Christopher Strieter, Max Thieriot and Myles Lawrence-Briggs partnered with world-class winemaker Thomas Rivers Brown to produce coastal Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Beginning with only 100 cases in their inaugural vintage, Senses currently crafts a few thousand cases of single vineyard and appellation wines. Grapes come from many renowned and family-owned vineyards including the B.A Thieriot, Terra de Promissio, Dutton Palms and Charles Heintz sites. The wines are complex, intense in flavour and beautifully balanced. All wines ferment via indigenous yeasts and are neither fined nor filtered. In the past two years, their presence in the marketplace has expanded to include placements on the menus of many Michelin-rated restaurants throughout the United States, including The French Laundry and Le Bernardin.
Region
The Oakville AVA is an officially-demarcated two-mile-wide swath of Napa Valley that extends to 1,000 feet in elevation up the base of the Vaca Mountains to the east and 500 feet in elevation in the Mayacamas Mountains to the west. Within this small district, you will find the greatest concentration of Napa Valley’s preeminent producers of Cabernet Sauvignon. The iron-rich soil is particularly suited to the variety, and the long, warm summers ensure full phenolic ripeness of the grapes.
Vineyard
Oakville is known for producing some of the most sought-after wines from Napa Valley. Locally referred to as the ‘heart and soul’ of Napa, Oakville is centered between the cool reaches of the San Francisco Bay to the south and the warmer inland air in St. Helena. Sourced entirely from a premier single vineyard on the eastern side of the Oakville appellation, the vines are rooted in red, rocky soil rich in iron with the volcanic strata reflective of the Vaca Mountains directly to the east. Sitting at approximately 190 feet, this area of Oakville transitions to the flats of the Napa River plain in step-like formations. Some scattered remains of Franciscan assemblage linger in the area, washed out long ago of the Lake Hennessey region through the ancient Conn Creek drainage. This diverse geology makes wine growing in this area particularly rewarding, resulting in wines consistently revered by connoisseurs and critics alike.
Varieties
Cabernet Sauvignon is probably the most famous red wine grape variety on earth and has successfully spread to almost every wine growing country. DNA profiling carried out in California in 1997 confirmed that Cabernet Sauvignon is the product of a natural genetic crossing between key Bordeaux grape varieties Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc. There are two key reasons for Cabernet Sauvignon’s rise to dominance. The most simple and primordial of these is that its vines are highly adaptable to different soil types and climates; it is grown at latitudes as disparate as 50°N (Okanagan Valley, Canada) and 20°S (northern Argentina), and in soils as different as the gravels of Pessac-Leognan and the iron-rich terra rossa of Coonawarra. Secondary to this, but just as important, is that despite the diversity of terroirs in which the vine is grown, Cabernet Sauvignon wines retain an inimitable “Cab” character, nuanced with hints of provenance in the best-made examples. Cabernet Sauvignon wines always seem to demonstrate a handful of common character traits: deep color, good tannin structure, moderate acidity and aromas of blackcurrant, tomato leaf, dark spices and cedarwood.
Winemaking
Hand-harvested in the evening. Long, slow fermentation to extract colour and tannins without astringency. 18 months aging in 100% new French Oak barriques, followed by at least one year in bottle before release.
Tasting Notes
The 2017 Senses Cabernet Sauvignon is a rich, alluring, velvety blanket of lush blue and black berries. It is juicy and full-bodied with fine-grained tannins that round the palate; thick, soft and sultry. Exuberant aromas of black currant and pepper swirl in the deep, opaque ruby color, exuding nuances of dusty soil and spice that persist in a long, savory finish. This wine will command your attention,captivating and seducing your senses.