Cask 23 2020

Pretty great wine. Winemaker Marcus Notaro and viticulturist Kirk Grace started the 2020 harvest for Cask 23 on the 12th of September; Notaro says they had brought in all their cabernet from Fay and S.L.V., the estate vineyards that provide this blend, just as the Glass Fire broke out (it started in Deer Park, near St. Helena, on September 27). Notaro believes the haze from distant fires earlier in the season did not impact the fruit, but the heat spikes of August did, accelerating ripeness. He credits what the team learned from the late season heat of 2015 and 2017 for their success with 2020, managing the vines through irrigation and “physically lowering the wires on the hot side of the canopy to shade the clusters from getting overheated.” His 2020 Cask 23 feels grounded in its alluvial depths (the Fay Vineyard, on an ancient river bed, makes up 53 percent of the blend). The wine’s blue fruit is round and stony, resinous and generous with black frills at the edges, filigree from the heat that adds detail without touching the core of fruit. That fruit presents a pure, completely clean face to the wine. This vintage will take a decade or more to show at its peak.