2013 シュレイダー カベルネ・ソーヴィニヨン LPV

2013 シュレイダー カベルネ・ソーヴィニヨン LPV

2013 Schrader Cabernet Sauvignon LPV

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Year  2013
Brand  Schrader
Vineyard  Beckstoffer Las Piedras
Appellation  St. Helena, Napa Valley
Varietal  100% Cabernet Sauvignon
Composition   Clones 4 and 337
Cooperage  Aged 20 months in rare Darnajou French oak barrels
Winemaker  Thomas Brown

Profile
In its third vintage, the Schrader LPV is truly coming into its own. A combination of incredible weather mixed with a deeper knowledge of the Beckstoffer Las Piedras vineyard has lead to this remarkable vintage of Schrader LPV. The entry of this wine offers a luxurious wave of deep, dark black and blue fruit aromas and flavors woven with layers of stunning crushed rock minerality and elegant notes of lead pencil shavings, loamy soil, sweet tobacco, incense, and forest floor. The wine is tremendously complex, beautifully balanced, and offers an expansive Cabernet profile.

Vintage
In 2013 the grapes enjoyed month upon glorious month of effortless sunny days followed by clear, cool nights. Warm spring temperatures gave way to an early budbreak and the consistent, dry weather afforded an optimal fruit set. The favorable conditions seamlessly continued through the summer and we faced none of the rogue heat spikes or rain threats that might otherwise challenge a strong vintage. Once in barrel, the wine continued to develop and gain profound flavors that led to winemaker Thomas Brown stating “These are the finest wines I have ever made.”

Vineyard
The Las Piedras Vineyard, a name that translates to “the stones” in Spanish, is an exceptional rolling estate in the North East St. Helena district that carries a rich viticultural history dating back to its founding by Edward Bale in the 1840s. An  exceptional terroir makes this vineyard unique, where the vines contour to the gentle slope and live in rocky soil that creates a perfectly stressed environment ideal for Cabernet Sauvignon. The result is fruit that is remarkably dense and wonderfully concentrated, abundant with a provocative and elegant minerality, and bursting with deep, lush black and blue fruit flavors complemented by magnificent structure.

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eRobertParker.com #221 Oct 2015     Robert M. Parker, Jr.     94     Drink: 2015 - 2035
The 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon Beckstoffer Las Piedras Vineyard Lpv comes from clone 337. This is a rather earthy style for a Schrader wine, with less drama and flamboyance, but great fruit, a more meaty, dusty style with underbrush as well as blackcurrants, with spicy oak. It’s dense, full-bodied and promises to age nicely for 20 more years.

After the remarkable performance of the 2012s, I would be hard-pressed to believe that Schrader could equal or eclipse that vintage, but they seem to have certainly equaled the quality of the 2012s. The 2013s are slightly more coiled and more tightly knit and with probably greater definition. That said, they all possess fabulous concentration and palate presence. Any of these will make a spectacular elixir/vinous treat to serve and consume over the next 25-30+ years. First-time readers may need to do a little research, but this is essentially a clonal study with micro-blends from the famous Oakville vineyard, the Beckstoffer To Kalon Vineyard, and more recently, a look at several other vineyards – the Beckstoffer George III Vineyard in Rutherford and the Beckstoffer Las Piedras Vineyard. Essentially, all of the wines are treated identically – aged in mostly Darnajou with some Taransaud barrels, they tend to always come in around 14.5%-14.7% natural alcohol, spend 20 months in all new oak and are bottled unfiltered. Since the beginning, they have been made by none other than the famed Napa consultant, Thomas Rivers Brown.

The wines are more similar than dissimilar, but I’ll do my best to catalog the subtle differences that can be found. However, at this pinnacle of quality, they are few and far between. Production ranges from a low of 110 cases for the Colesworthy and 186 cases for the George III, to as much as 608 cases for the RBS and 650 cases for the LPV.