Addendum Skellenger Lane Rutherford Cabernet Sauvignon

After spending 30 years honing their expertise in Santa Barbara’s Burgundian and Rhone varieties, the second-generation Fess Parker family sought to build and expand upon Fess’s vision, using their long-term relationships to access some of the most prestigious, established, and diverse vineyard holdings in Napa Valley and fulfil their ambition to make top-quality Napa Cabernet.

The 2014 vintage was the first for the Addendum project, with site-specific grape sources that range from the unmistakably high-elevation Stagecoach Vineyard to the historic prestige Rutherford AVA valley floor vineyard with its classic ‘Rutherford Dust’ terroir.

Viticulture: Addendum’s exceptional wines are crafted solely from top Napa sites that can reveal distinctive Cabernet characteristics. This wine is from the prestige valley floor Rutherford Vineyard. Grapes are harvested only at winemaker Blair Fox’s discretion, and only at levels of ripeness that will produce elegant and aromatic wines, optimizing terroir, with varietal accuracy, with care to avoid overripeness.

Winemaking: Grapes are 100% destemmed and hand-sorted. The juice is fermented in a static fermentor with one or two pump-overs per day for 36 days. The wine is aged for 28 months in 100% new French oak.

Grape Varieties: 100% Cabernet Sauvignon

Tasting Notes: Aromas of prune and loganberry alongside cocoa and exotic spices leap from the glass. A lush, open palate with tremendous richness and depth and waves of soft, ripe approachable tannin followed by hints of clove and roasted meats. Great complexity and impressive length.

Food Match: Aged ribeye of beef, venison pie.

Awards: 95+ Wine Advocate, 93 Wine Enthusiast, 92+ Jeb Dunnuck, 90 Wine & Spirits, 90 Vinous

Farming Practices: Contain Sulfites - Vegan

Closure: Natural Cork