Gan Eden 1997 Limited Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon Wine

Our 1997 GAN EDEN Limited Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon is a wine of surpassing elegance and style. 100% varietal, it was created entirely from fruit grown at Eaglepoint ranch. The vineyards are the highest and steepest in Mendocino County. This is true high-mountain Cabernet Sauvignon. It is highly extracted, and this makes for a long-lived style of wine which is not for everybody, tight and tannic. However, 1997, as a vintage, was noted for supple tannins, and it worked to favor accessibility in these grapes. The wine, though tannic, is drinkable now, even while indicating enhanced ageability. It is not as tight as it would have been in a normal year, allowing some fruit character to manifest itself even in a wine with so little time in bottle (barely a year and a half- very little from the standpoint of mountain Cab). The grapes for this wine were harvested at 24 degrees brix, fermented dry on skins using indigenous yeasts, macerated for 2 months on skins to maximize extraction, and oak aged using both French and American oak of varying toast levels, from medium to heavily toasted. This wine emphasizes structure, the complex interplay between fruit, tannin, acidity and oak. we attempted not to overoak, however, in order to maximize the fruit character (to the extent I could) early on. However, there is plenty of oak to allow for aging. This is a more highly acidic wine than many other California Cabernet Sauvignons, due to my desire to see it age gracefully tor at least 10 years. However, as I said, it can be enjoyed now.